


Only As Good As The One Who Wields It

by GirlWithTheGhostTattoo



Category: Avatar (Sweden Band)
Genre: F/M, Forbidden Affair, Guess who has a hair kink, Kissing, Knifeplay, Licking, Light Dom/sub, Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Spoiler alert: its me, Tim is kinda dommy, Using a knife during sex, Vaginal Sex, blindfolding, he might have a mirror on the ceiling, just fucking read it okay, why are tags so damn hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:54:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26446681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GirlWithTheGhostTattoo/pseuds/GirlWithTheGhostTattoo
Summary: Not entirely sure when this takes place, but just use your imagination yah?This was supposed to be a one shot, but now its a multi-part thing, of course.For my good friend, who hauled me out from under the rock where I lived and showed me Jonas' sword swallowing video. And I ain't never been the same since. 💙
Relationships: Tim Öhrström/Original Female Character
Comments: 13
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dragonsfire8780](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonsfire8780/gifts).



> Part 2 coming soon, just tweaking the fun bits. 
> 
> Said the actress to the bishop.

My father seemed to both age and become reinvigorated before my eyes as his own scanned the missive in his hands. He was pale, but angry enough that my food suddenly seemed to go cold in my mouth and I put my fork down with a shaking hand, waiting for the bad news. 

"What is it?" I asked in a small voice, swallowing against the lump in my throat. 

"Another death."

A cold chill shot down my spine and the goosebumps raised across my skin as I tried to stay calm and collected. 

"Who?"

"Serving girl."

"What was the cause? Maybe its unrelated--"

His eyes cut to me over the top of the paper and told me exactly what he thought about that comment. 

"I didn't raise a fool, Linnea, do not act like one."

He pinched the bridge of his nose hard between his thumb and forefinger and angled it down towards the table, sucking in one of those deep calming breaths that I'd seen him take all my life before scooting his heavy wooden chair back across the flagstone floor with a harsh sound so he could get to his feet.

"Tim," he called, turning his chin barely over his shoulder as his palms rested flat against the worn wood of the table, polished by many years of kingly hands just like his resting in much the same way to stare at daughters just like me.

The other appeared, stepping out of the shadows where he'd been standing so still that one might have overlooked him as part of the scenery if they weren't careful.

"Sire."

My father took one more long, straight look at me under his furrowed eyebrows and then turned back to the other, speaking lowly.

"Another girl is dead?"

"Yes, sir," a muscle in his jaw visibly ticked, like he was clenching his teeth together, "poison. No telling if she consumed it in the castle or out in the village."

My father pinched the bridge of his nose again, taking a breath and settling on a plan.

"I want Linnea's escort doubled. And teach her to defend herself. I don't anticipate it coming to that, but I have been too careless already by letting her come this far without some kind of combat training."

"Combat training?? Hang on--" I interjected, but was ignored by both men.

"Of course, sir," Tim nodded his head in acknowledgement, "I will assign two others of my men to watch her, and Lucan will be switched out to make time for training."

"No," the king shook his head, "leave him - he's subtle and he's watchful and I want him where he is. You'll do the training yourself, I'll take no chances and you're the best in this court."

I thought for a moment that he was going to refuse, but the king cut him off.

"I've been looking over my shoulder since before you were born, I'm sure I'll be fine without you for an hour a day..."

Tim glanced over at me, sitting stone-still at the other end of the table, having forgotten all about my dinner as soon as the servant scurried away in dismissal after handing the sealed paper to my father with a shaking hand. 

His face was a mask of carefully-crafted neutrality, reminding me of just how little I really knew about him. I'd made inquiries when he showed up at court, but no one seemed to even know where he was from. Close to my age, I guessed, but it was always hard to tell with men. 

He was a foreigner though to be sure, and spoke our language fluidly, albeit with a strange, clipped accent. In the flat boots of his court uniform he still stood a few inches taller than me, and wore his hair long - far longer than most of the women here, in fact.

Someone had obviously vetted him though, because he'd hardly left my father's side in the five years since he'd shown up, watching closely, advising whenever is was required. 

But mostly watching.

Always watching. 

I looked from my father to Tim, who was still keeping an eye on me from the corner of his vision as he nodded his head once more.

"As you wish, sir."

He stood up straight, waiting to be dismissed if there was no more need of him, and the king waved a hand indicating that he was free to resume his lurking in the shadows. Watching, just incase the potatoes decided to stage a coup.

He bowed formally at the waist to the king, the motion pulling at the thick braid that always laid straight down his back from the nape of his neck nearly to his waist. 

Then he turned to me, and with equal formality inclined his head with a polite, "until tomorrow, Princess."

I pursed my lips and nodded back. 

Combat training.

Fantastic.

\--

It was late when he came in, far past midnight. 

He didn't come every night, not by a longshot, but there had been a split second look in his eye when he was taking his leave of myself and my father at the dinner table where I knew he'd come tonight, so I waited. 

I was sitting up in bed, reading a book I'd read a hundred times before, a tale of strangers in their far off castles who were apparently far safer than I was. My eyes had been sightlessly scanning the same page for the better part of ten minutes, waiting for the slightest sound to confirm my suspicions. 

Tim never made any sound though. 

And suddenly he was there.

The door shut silently behind him and he spent a long second leaning back against it and looking at me before moving over to snuff out the candles with his fingertips, effectively killing all light save for what came through my balcony windows. 

"Combat training? Seriously?" I tossed the book onto my writing desk as I got to my feet, ready to let loose the barrage of objections I'd been mentally collecting since dinner until he let me out of it. 

But he didn't say anything. He just swept up to me like he was made of mist, pulling his shirt off over his head, the way he always did. 

He touched a finger to my lips. Not hard. Not in a 'shut up' way, but more in a 'be silent' kind of way. 

We never spoke during. Afterwards, I would try to ask him questions and he'd avoid them the way he always did.

And I'd fall asleep and he'd leave, the way he always did. 

It had surprised me the first time he'd come to me. He'd never been flustered or overly-talkative, the way some of lords' sons were around me, and in fact he'd hardly paid me any mind. 

But my father was negotiating a new trade deal and wished that I sit in on discussions. I was heir apparent now, so these things had to be learned. 

It was the only occasion we'd spent any length of time together, but over the days I could feel him watching. Waiting. And the more I started to feel like hunted prey, the more interested I found myself becoming with him. 

There were no shows of courtly romance or flirting, but the glances we exchanged became longer. Something more intense and unspoken, like we were communicating on a level far more evolved than everyone around us. 

I don't know what I had expected to become of it, but it certainly wasn't him letting himself into my bedroom and suddenly standing behind me where I was seated on my vanity stool brushing my hair out as I let my mind wander. 

"Hellebore," he murmured quietly, meeting my stare in the mirror as my eyebrows slightly furrowed, wordlessly asking what the hell that was supposed to mean.

"Hellebore," I repeated, shaking my head again with a lack of understanding.

"Say it and I'll stop."

He'd gently run a hand down over my hair then, before dancing his fingertips over my jaw, down my neck, mapping me like I was another passageway in the castle to be learned, watching his movements in the mirror.

Our eyes met again as he slowly slid the straps of my nightgown down my shoulders until the material pooled around my waist, and his fingers moved down over my collarbone, across the flat of my sternum, down to the swell of my breast. 

He hadn't stayed that night either. 

Now, here we were, months later. It wasn't often that he appeared in my room, but he seemed to have a keen awareness for when we both needed it. 

It wasn't love, and maybe was only a step slightly above lust, but it was wonderfully grounding. A physical connection to another human that leveled us both out.

This time proved to be no different and he accepted no more objections from me, rather unhooking the buttons of his court uniform pants and waiting for me to rid myself of my clothing as well. 

This was the only part I'd ever really been unsettled by. After that first time, with the sensual sliding of my nightgown straps down my shoulders, he never undressed me. He just shucked his own clothing and waited for me to do the same. 

I was used to it by now, but still wished that he'd help. Foreplay, and all that. 

But I was no less ready for him this time than any of the others, and I welcomed the quieting of my mind as his mouth slammed against mine insistently and he pressed me back down onto my bed, flipping that switch that would give us both relief from reality for at least a little while. 

\--

I woke up alone, as expected, but the sound of thick paper crinkling was what ultimately pulled me from my dreams as I rolled over into the empty hollow next to me. 

My eyes opened and I blinked slowly, registering my surroundings as my heart rate slowed. No one chasing me or trying to force-feed me poisoned apples in this world, then.

The paper was from my own stationery, and had been folded and tucked halfway under the pillow where he'd been. 

We begin today at 10:30AM sharp. Don't be late.

There was no salutation or signature, and I narrowed my eyes at the curtness of the note. The almost-sharpness of the tone was so at odds with the sweating, panting man whose fingers had curled with pleasure into my bedsheets, tearing at them as he cried out his release just hours before. 

A wide yawn reminded me just how little sleep I'd actually gotten and I shook my head to banish the thought of the look on his face in the moments after. He always looked like there was something he wanted to say, but he bit back the comment every time, preferring to pull me closer so he could comb his fingers through my hair until I fell asleep and stopped pestering him with questions he wouldn't ever answer no matter how many times we did this. 

Even with how relatively routine it had all become, I was still excited every morning that I stepped out of bed and felt a pang of soreness between my legs. Gods knew nothing could liven up a routine existence quite like forbidden sex with a relative stranger...

\--


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apparently this thing has more than 2 parts. NOT SORRY.

I hit the ground hard with an _oof_ , getting the breath knocked out of my lungs in the process so that I laid there gasping for air like a landed fish for several seconds as my ribs protested in pain.

"Where is that focus today, Princess," he scolded as he stared down at me, waiting for an answer.

"Sorry, I think I'm just tired."

I'd bitten my lip hard when he knocked me off my feet with a move I should have seen coming after weeks of running through the same progressions, and I wiped at the blood that pooled from the split with the back of my hand.

Tim reached down and hauled me to my feet, a strange expression crossing his handsome face as he looked at me for several seconds once I was upright. He was normally only ever collected and calculated, even behind closed doors, and the look took me by surprise.

"What is it? Are you okay?"

"Yes," he said flatly, though it was obvious he'd probably gotten as little sleep as I had, "I...yes."

"You seemed...distressed..." I left off 'last night', though there was no one within earshot of us.

It had been weeks since I'd seen him outside of training or casual passing in the great hall, but last night, he'd showed up in a flurry, barely holding it together long enough to get out of his clothes before crowding into me, invading my space and consuming me like a man starved.

He glanced around, taking stock of who was watching us, but dropped his voice even when he found us alone, speaking lowly so only I would hear him, though totally ignoring my comment.

"I wasn't the one screaming in my sleep."

"Was I? I had nightma--wait, did you stay?"

"Just until you were calm," he looked back and forth between my eyes again, then shook his head with a huffed breath, flipping back to being cool and aloof.

"Move your feet next time. Remember what we discussed about the movement of water."

"How long are we gonna do this, Tim?" I hissed, grabbing his hand when he turned around to leave, "how long do I have to play this game before you tell me anything! I don't even know where in the castle you live!"

"That's enough," he snapped, the wall that separated our stations in life towering straight up between us.

I was tired and my ribs were starting to hurt from the blow, not to mention the bruises on my inner thighs, and I bit my lip to keep the frustrated tears from forming, gasping and cursing as I made the split there worse.

He stayed standing where he was as I composed myself, but reached over after another moment, wiping the blood from my bottom lip slowly with the pad of his thumb, drawing my thunderstruck gaze up to his as he lingered for a moment too long.

"There are things you don't want to know about me, Linnea. Trust me on that," he said softly.

It was probably the most honest, straight-forward thing he'd ever said to me, but the way his eyes swirled dangerously made me tremble.

From anticipation or want or fear, I couldn't really say, but even in the throes of passion he'd never used my first name.

"We're ending for today. Your mind is clearly elsewhere."

He wasn't wrong - maybe I'd been a little tired before, but now I was positively distracted, nodding automatically as I realized I'd been spoken to.

Tim glanced down again at my smeared bottom lip, then slipped his bloodied thumb into his mouth and gave me a look that made me lightheaded as his pupils went wide for a moment.

"Mmm. It would seem red is your color, Princess..." he breathed, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth as he watched me struggle not to be as out of sorts as I clearly was.

His braid fell over his shoulder when he bowed at the waist to me, as was appropriate when taking leave of royalty, and stalked off towards his men, waiting at the outskirts of the sand-filled training ring.

"Hellebore," I called after him, watching the bare muscles of his back stiffen for a moment before he slowly turned to face me.

He'd given it to me to use as a safe word, though I'd never even come close to needing it. But I found it a peculiar choice, and nothing I was familiar with.

"What is it?" I asked, having reclaimed his attention for at least one more moment.

Lucan stood at the edge of the training ring, casually conversing with Hagen, the additional man assigned to escort me everywhere I went, day and night, and Tim glanced in their direction to make sure they weren't listening before looking back, coming closer until he was standing right in front of me.

So close that I could smell the sweat dripping off his body.

"Hellebore is a flower. There are places in the world where it grows black -- well, a very deep shade of purple," he corrected himself, looking over my face carefully, waiting to see if I would pick up the rest. I still didn't understand his choice, but I wasn't going to push for more.

"Somethings wrong, Tim," I whispered lowly, glancing around, "in my dream last night--"

"Your highness, shall we?" Lucan called, making Tim's head snap up like he'd forgotten too that we weren't alone.

There was a good-natured smirk toying with the corner of the bigger man's broad mouth as he watched Tim take a step back from me until we were a polite distance apart, "Amora threatened to hang me by my boots if I didn't have you back the moment your training ended."

"Sorry, what?" I blinked, coming back to reality, "where are we going?"

"Your chambers, then you're out of my care, because what do I know of women and their primping," he laughed gaily, beckoning to me with one hand to join him, "it could as well be a spa as a den of vipers."

"Primping? Oh. OH."

Between the somewhat distressed visit from Tim in the late hours of last night and my subsequent hellscape dreams, then losing my feet and my head in training today, I'd actually managed to forget about the ball.

"Best get a move on," Tim nodded his chin in Lucan's direction, "I don't doubt he's telling the truth about Amora."

I looked back to him quickly, still feeling unsettled by his behavior. He wasn't normally cold to me, per se, but something closer to slightly distant. Like he was always aware of coming a step too close and fracturing this bizarre dalliance we were carrying on.

"I'm worried about you," I whispered, finally deciding to just take a leap of faith and trust the gnawing in my gut.

He looked for a moment like I'd slapped him, his eyes going wide and his expression blank for a moment. But he took a step closer to me, speaking lowly once more, though his body language said far more than anything that would have come out of his mouth and been overheard.

"I am here so that you don't have to worry. About me or anybody else."

There was a little smile toying with his mouth, softening the somewhat angular features and making his eyes crinkle at the corners as we both experienced a moment of something like mutual tenderness.

"Right...well, ahem. Until tonight then, I suppose."

"I look forward to it, as always, Your Royal Highness..." he spoke, taking a deep breath and giving me a lingering look before moving away to collect and store the various implements we'd used in training.

"Tim," I sucked in a deep, steeling breath, meeting his stare as he turned back to me one last time, and I took a backwards step towards Lucan, keeping my eyes on Tim, "maybe I do want to know..."

I didn't wait for an answering look or anything else before turning and heading off with my escort, congratulating myself on my bravery and wondering what kind of dark and twisty situation I may have just gotten myself into.

\--

Hours later I sat in front of my vanity, bathed and scrubbed and clean and staring at my reflection as Amora hummed softly, combing through my hair and rubbing fragrant oil through the thick locks. She'd been in my life and as ever-present as the sun for as long as I could remember, and had gotten disturbingly good at deciphering my moods.

"You're quiet today, miss."

"Hmm? Oh. Yes. I...training was hard today."

"He's doing well by you then. Mind you, your father will think that this was all his own idea," she chuckled, clucking at me to stay still when I tried to turn around and face her.

"What does that mean?"

Her eyes met mine in the mirror with an unfamiliar expression, leaving me surprised to see two such expressions in one day.

She'd never held back her thoughts from me, and I'd always done the same with her, from the time I was toddling around her skirts as she readied my mother for the same occasion that she readied me for now.

"There were...concerns...voiced after the passing of your brother and the queen. You know I've always done my best by you, but you were raised too cautiously, _pica_. Raised like a woman, not like a ruler."

I silently arched both eyebrows at her, but she looked back down towards her fingers which were expertly weaving my hair into some kind of masterpiece.

"Well I'll not speak for anyone but myself I suppose, but I told the king none too kindly that it was all fine and well to have strong lads about you, guarding you and whatnot, but you needed to know something of the sort yourself too...just in case."

"Just in case..."

"Aye. but then nothing happened for so long, that I thought perhaps we'd...I had been too hasty."

"But now its too late..." fear flashed across my face in the mirror.

"I'll not hear that kind of talk," she silenced me with a firm voice and a headshake, realizing after a moment that I was sitting stiff as a board with my hands clenched together in my lap, knotting my fingers into each other.

"You've got a good head on your shoulders, Linnea," she ran a soft hand down my cheek, looking at me in the mirror still, "trust that voice up here that guides you. She's not been wrong yet, _pica_."

I wanted to tell her that we may be approaching the end of that streak, but I only nodded, relaxing a hair as my anxiety seemed to bleed away under her ministrations and my eyes closed while she pulled my head this way and that, tucking and curling and pinning.

A knock at the door interrupted my internal wanderings and the mental image of that last slow smile disappeared as my eyes snapped open. I reached for my glass and took a sip of wine, shaking my head and wondering if I'd made a fool of myself in front of him.

But the more I thought about it and tried to pick it apart, the less I could step back and look at it as casual sex. It wasn't so much that we were using each other, it was--

Amora's shoes clicked across the stone floor after the heavy door closed once again, and she reappeared holding a small box in her hands, raising both eyebrows at me as I turned on my low stool to face her with an identical expression.

"What is it?"

"Shall I?"

I nodded, chewing my lip a little.

"Oh," she gasped, tipping the lid open just a crack at first like there might be spiders waiting inside, then opening it completely and whistling lowly through her teeth as she turned it to show me.

The contents made my jaw drop - calling it mere jewelry would have been an injustice to the art and craftsmanship.

"Holy hell," I breathed, running a black lacquered nail over the polished cut surface of the teardrop emerald. It sat within a halo of tiny diamonds, carefully fit together in their settings so they formed an oval surrounding the loose stone hanging in the center.

"He's outdone himself," I looked at her wide-eyed, glancing around for the bouquet of flowers that always came with a present from the king, but there were none.

She realized the same thing, glancing on the underside of the lid and handing the folded piece of paper to me that she found there.

It was simple and handwritten, without any salutations or signature.

_Perhaps I was mistaken in thinking red was your color and that all secrets are meant to be kept._

My whole body flushed with fire, the flames licking at the surface of my skin as I reddened and turned away with a hand to my cheek, clutching the paper in my fist and wishing a hole in the floor would open up and swallow me.

What was this supposed to mean?

That question rolled over in my mind continuously on a loop as I sat like a doll, being made up and dressed and fluffed to Amora's content.

The ball was an annual affair, something to welcome in the spring and shake off the winter's lingering darkness.

My brother had always told me that the first one was held before we were born.

Our mother was never supposed to be the girl who caught the eye of the young king, but things went awry, as they always seemed to.

She wasn't one of us, of our people. She belonged to a different family, a different kingdom entirely, but he'd been irrevocably taken with her the minute she'd stepped foot into the hall with her father, come to pay the new king polite respects.

Our father had secretly begged her for her hand, putting her in an impossible place.

What did he have to do to prove she was his heart's blood? What was the single thing she'd wanted more than anything else all her life?

To dance. Like all the lords and ladies, whirling and spinning about, carefree behind their masks.

I'd always loved that part of the story. Tristan would turn me in a giggling, shrieking circle and tell me about the elegant costumes like he'd been there - lords with masks that made them look like stags and lions, and ladies wearing their own woven from real flowers picked straight from the castle gardens.

Surely our mother must have been shocked when such finery showed up to her guest chamber in the castle, gifted to her with a note that only said 'if I know what love it, it is because of you'.

And every year since, it was the biggest event of the year, practically a holiday unto itself.

They'd married in the summer, earning the ire of her father and losing the kingdom an ally.

They were gone now though. The queen and Tristan. In the five years since, my father had doubly insisted that we must continue tradition, now more than even to keep fresh their memories.

The costumes were more somber these days.

I snapped back into the present with a sharp, huffed breath as she pulled hard on the laces of my corset, pushing the oxygen from my lungs and forcing me to stand up straighter as she tied them into a neat bow and tucked them discreetly away so they wouldn't show under my dress.

Minutes later I was tucked and tied into a beautiful black satin gown that scooped low in the front to accentuate my cleavage, but not so low as to be unsuitable. It hugged my waist, curved more fashionably by the corset, and made me look tall and striking.

"Sit you down now, these are no good in the box, dear," she pushed me back onto the vanity stool, reaching for the gift box once more and lifting the delicate bits of jewelry out. She swept the necklace down around my neck and fussed with the latch in the increasingly dim lighting, tucking the matching earrings through my ears afterwards.

For several seconds I sat quietly on the stool, sipping my wine in the candlelight before meeting her reflected gaze in the mirror, wondering why she hadn't asked what admirer had sent me such a rich gift. What came out of her mouth was something rather different.

"Stars be blessed, you look just like her when she was your age."

I turned with sad eyes, "really?"

"Aye. You'll never have that sunflower hair like she did though," she chuckled, tipping a finger under my chin and pressing her forehead to mine fondly, "you're dark like his majesty."

She turned me back towards the mirror as she took a series of deep breaths to collect herself, fussing with my hair again, making those curls that remained loose sit exactly as she wanted them.

"I miss them," I said quietly, turning back to her and wrapping my arms around her thick waist. She was a short woman, as stout as they come, but her touch was soft and motherly, and for a few quiet moments we mourned our loss together, remembering the happy years when I'd been washed and primped and perfumed in my mother's shadow...but we were always presented together, to the roaring cheers of the court- the queen and the princess.

"Myself as well. You make them proud though, I know it," she smiled at me, taking the opportunity to thumb the tears away from my cheeks, clucking that it would ruin my makeup, "and you're as beautiful as she was. Lucky he'll be, whatever man His Royal Highness chooses for you."

Another tear dropped unbidden as I closed my eyes hard.

_Lucky will be._

But--...

No.

I took one final look in the mirror, downing the rest of my glass of wine, just as the knock on my door came for my escort.

"Lets get you on now, lady," Amora chided gently, pressing a careful kiss to the top of my hair, "I reckon there are a fair number of eager lads waiting on a dance with the princess..."

"Always one too many," I smiled, making her grin with laughter as she reached for my mask, tying it carefully across my eyes before placing one hand on my shoulder as she met my masked reflection in the mirror, fluffing the delicate peacock feather with the other so it caught the low candlelight.

"You're like my own daughter by now, child, and I love you like one," she pulled me to my feet and rapidly turned me towards her, gripping my shoulders tight, "have care, but enjoy yourself. Gods know you've earned it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.ibestest.com/products/peacock-mask
> 
> Ayy.


	3. Chapter 3

The music was intoxicating, swirling around me like the dancing bodies, whirling in a dizzying array of colors and fabrics and textures.

My dancing partner this round was a younger son of an Earl, bound no doubt for the church eventually, and enjoying the richness of life while he could. He bowed low over my hand as he returned me to Lucan, who looked as charming as ever in a simple bronze eyemask, the color playing with the darker tones of his hair under the lights.

"This may be our last dance, Princess," he touched his masked forehead to my knuckles, making me laugh again, "I fear next spring I'll be cloistered at last."

"I don't doubt that you'll find some way to postpone your fate for another year again, sir."

With a wink and a wily smile he departed, leaving me feeling like my face was going to crack in half from laughter as he hopped and danced back into the throng, catching an unsuspecting lady around her waist and making a show of it.

My father had pulled out all the stops for this one, like the more we created beauty in her memory, the less sad we'd be at her absence, and everyone was dressed in their best, wearing delicate masks transforming them into foxes and hawks, and mysterious mythological creatures with great plumes of feathers.

"And what about you," I looked over to Lucan laughing still, accepting the flute of chilled wine from him, "aren't you going to find some lonely duchess to whisk around the floor?"

He shook his head with a smile, "the gods blessed me with one left foot, and a spare. Besides, if I'm out there, who will keep you safe from the monsters?"

"That would be me," Tim materialized to my left, moving in that silent way that he always did and immediately drawing my attention as I turned, my glass nearly dropping from my fingers.

He was perfect. Clean cut and freshly shaven, with the tips of his mustache waxed and curled under his black and gold half-face mask. He'd foregone his standard court uniform for something more subtle, more textured. It was all black, buttoned just once with a coat that went long, down to his hips.

His hair was pulled back and braided, as it always was, the thick rose-gold rope standing out starkly against the dark material.

The color made him easy to pick out in a crowd any day if he wasn't trying to remain unseen, but now it positively shone under the lights. We all tended to be darker-haired, browns and mahoganies, and occasionally colors like mine that were a deep black, save for the right lighting where the purple undertones glinted through.

Tim took the untouched glass from my fingertips, handing it to Lucan standing behind me and cocking an eyebrow when the other didn't accept it right away.

"Sir," he finally inclined his head, took the glass and stepped back, leaving me watching the dancers, and Tim watching me.

"May I?" he asked softly after a moment, offering me one hand and bowing low over mine when I placed it reflexively in his.

I was immediately surprised by the grace with which he moved as we turned in elegant circles, our feet moving in perfect mirrors of one another as his hand settled high on my back, just under my shoulderblade.

I was trying to figure out a tactful way to thank him for the absurdly expensive gift without tripping over myself and fawning all over him. The last thing I needed was to have him think I liked him because he gave me something shiny. Not now.

He didn't speak for several minutes as we danced, smoothly whirling around the floor, receiving nods and approving smiles from my father's courtiers. They always thought that they youths like me were shirking the proper respect that courtly custom and manners were due. But they looked on me fondly now, the little girl who had been the apple of the king's eye since I'd been born, grown now in a proper woman and heir apparent.

"They're staring at you," he said, his lips cocking in a little smirk under his waxed mustache. I could tell he was keeping one eye on me and one eye on everyone else.

"I stopped noticing that about fifteen years ago," I shook my head a little, placing both hands on his shoulders as his closed around my waist and I jumped off the floor in step with the music and the couples around us, "where on earth did you get something like this?"

"Something I've had tucked away for a long time."

"Well...thank you."

"You're welcome," he smirked, whipping me around into some kind of flourish at the end that my own experienced feet didn't know. It caught me off guard and I blinked rapidly at him as the tempo changed again into something even slower, "you're awfully full of surprises today."

"The movement of water, Princess," he chuckled, surprising me yet again for the third time in a single minute as he didn't let go, but changed his hold on me, pulling me closer and moving me to the steps of the dance.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked, taking another glance around the room in a way that made me realize he couldn't help it, even if he wanted to.

Always watching.

It seemed rude to say out loud that before that moment I'd never seem him laugh or even really smile outright, so I just shook my head and let him spin me around, relishing the heat of his hand cupping mine and his clean smell wrapping around me in the midst of gaudy musks and heady perfumes.

But the longer we danced in broad circles, the more they seemed to cut through like razors, choking me in a thick cloud until the colors around me started to run together in a funny way, twisting and turning like brush strokes in an abstract painting and I stumbled a step.

_Linnea..._

_Linnea..._

_Linnea..._

I looked around but no one was calling for me.

_Linnea..._

I shook my head trying to rid myself of the whispers as I stopped dancing and backed out of Tim's grasp. The room was spinning too much and I pressed both hands against my middle as I struggled to breathe, blinking at the floor, but that was spinning too.

Tim's arm closed around my waist as I met his eyes with wild fear in mine, a deep-seated discomfort that I couldn't pinpoint the source of as I swayed on my feet.

"What is it?"

My hands gripped his upper arms to keep myself from falling.

"I...I need...I have to get out of here...can't...breathe..."

"Hang on, stay with me," his head whipped around, searching for and finding Lucan after a moment as his arm anchored around my waist and he pulled me out of the twirling dancers, practically holding me upright.

"My lady? What is it? You don't look well."

"She just needs air. Tell the king."

He could feel my rapid shallow inhales and exhales under his hand, and his fingertips unintentionally traced the bottom hem of the corset subtly, unable to see a problem and not automatically find its solution now after years of that being his purpose here.

Lucan looked me over for several more seconds.

"I'm...I'm fine," I smiled politely, though the truth was something closer to 'I'm suffocating' as I still struggled to breathe.

He turned and moved through the crowd of curious onlookers towards the dais where my father was seated, talking lowly with a member of his council and watching the festivities.

_Linnea..._

"I have to get out of here," I started to panic, feeling like a trapped animal in a cage, taking a step backwards, looking for any kind of escape as the whisper sounded in my head again.

Tim gripped my hand in his and wrapped the other around my waist, steering me out of the hall, pushing through the throngs of bodies decked in lace and satin, leering masked faces that had minutes before filled me with awe, but now seemed garish and terrifying.

My feet moved mechanically, following where he led, without really registering where we were going other than that it wasn't towards the outside, as I'd initially thought. Rather we seemed to be going deeper into the castle, through doors I'd never seen opened though I'd lived here my entire life.

He finally pushed me into a room and slammed the heavy wooden door behind us, locking it and taking a quick look around before pulling a chair over for me to sit down.

I pressed my hands to my head, trying to calm down, but I was still dizzy and having a hard time breathing, taking short, shallow gasping breaths that weren't giving me enough oxygen.

"Hey," he knelt in front of me, looking up and taking both of my hands in his, pressing them to his chest as he took a deep slow breath, "watch me."

It took me several tries, but he was patient, keeping my hands there where I could feel the slow expansion and relaxing of his lungs.

"That's good. Just like that. Just breathe slow."

The dizziness and shakes subsided the longer I focused on each inhale and exhale, until I was doing it on my own unprompted.

"Are you okay?" he got to his feet as I nodded, the slight sternness creeping back into his expression, "did you eat or drink anything?"

"No, not for a few hours, but I'm fine, I'm not--oh..." I realized as I babbled an answer that he wasn't concerned that I didn't have enough energy not to pass out. His worry stemmed from something else entirely.

"Poison?" I whispered, going pale and struggling to keep my breathing even and not undo all the patient work he'd just put in to help me.

His mouth formed a flat line and he nodded stiffly.

"But its been weeks since the--"

"Otho found his wife dead in their chambers last night. He swears she hadn't been out of the castle in a week, so--"

"So he's here. He's inside..."

Another stiff nod and suddenly it all made sense. The fervor and frustration of his visit the night before, the way it had been about smothering me and shielding me physically with his body.

And he had stayed.

Only until I quieted down from my nightmares, yes, but even then he risked being discovered if anyone else had been awakened by my screams.

"I'm okay," I took another shaking, slow breath, standing up and stepping closer, looking up at him as he reached behind my head to untie the silk strings of my mask before doing the same to his and tossing both aside.

He swallowed hard, but didn't stop me when I stepped closer.

"I'm okay," I whispered again, touching his hand.

Our stares locked and there was a single moment where his fingers trembled under mine before he leaned in slowly, hesitating as he hovered over my lips like he was unsure of himself before closing the gap and touching his lips softly to mine.

Tim never spent much time kissing me. When he did, it was hard and rough, nothing tender and meaningful. But now, as his lips repeatedly brushed slowly against mine and the breaking of each kiss echoed off the stones around us, it was hard to remember that he'd ever done anything else. Not when his tongue was teasing at the seam of my lips, daring them to open to him and tempt my fate.

A soft sound somewhere between a moan and a sigh left me as I pressed closer, sinking in and letting myself get intoxicated by the sensation of him taking it slow. One hand gently cupped my cheek, tucking his fingers behind my ear for a moment before letting them brush down my neck as the other arm hooked low around my waist, pulling me harder against him. The sensation was surreal, sending sparks of warmth down to the tips of my toes.

He tasted faintly smoky in a way that reminded me of scotch as his tongue slid over mine, filling me with the low hum that was his reaction to my sounds and the taste of my mouth.

He pulled back when I pressed for more and huffed out a sharp breath, looking at the floor rather than at me before turning on his heel and disappearing around the corner without another word.

There was silence at first, like he might be taking a moment to collect himself. But the clinking of glassware told me what he was doing when he didn't initially reappear.

I was glad for it, realizing that I needed a moment, too. My position in life meant that someone was always watching over me like a hawk, so passionate stolen kisses in my formative years had been few and far between. Certainly nothing like what I'd just experienced.

A painting on the wall caught my attention as I shook my head at my own ridiculous infatuation, and I took stock of myself. I didn't feel ill, and was certain now that I'd just been overloaded and overstimulated for a moment, a combination of the scents and colors and dancing coupled with the restrictive nature of my clothing.

Thank the gods I didn't have to wear this thing everyday. There were some ladies who did, but the always seemed slightly pinched and slow-moving, and now I understood why.

Certainly though, I'd be able to make it through the end of the evening.

Then I could retreat back to my chambers and burn the damn thing if I wanted.

I wondered briefly if he would come to me once everyone else had gone to bed and the castle was quiet. I could hardly imagine spending the night by myself after a kiss like that. After watching him break the hard exterior so the concern for me could bleed through.

My fingers brushed the necklace settled against my sternum, mulling over everything as I crossed to stand in front of the painting that had caught my eye first. I realized absently as my mind wandered that I was following it, moving from one frame to the next along the wall and out of the small sitting room.

The subjects ranged from seascapes and harbors filled with tall ships to open expanses of land, green rolling hills dotted with animals but seemingly untouched by human presence save for the painter.

I stopped in front of one without realizing where I'd wandered to.

It was a still-life, a woman sitting in a chair, laughing, with a basket heaped full of dark flowers in her lap. The petals were dark and glossy looking, only the painter's skill with light revealing that the petals were in fact purple, rather than black. There was a hint of golden hair peaking out from under her head covering, and she seemed to be overjoyed at the feeling of the blooms under her fingertips.

My own fingers mimicked hers, like I could press my hands into her basket of flowers, but they touched something hard and cold rather than soft, waxy petals, and I pulled them back like I'd been burned.

With a slight gasp I looked down at the small table under the picture, draped with a dark cloth. It was carefully set with an array of knives. The blades were different lengths, some with ornately carved handles, some made of metal that shone in a hundred different colors depending on which way it caught the light.

I swallowed hard and touched one again, the cool metal feeling like ice against my fingertip as I traced a line up the length of the blade, wondering why one man could possibly need so many.

"Hellebore," he said from the archway, leaning a shoulder against the stone and holding a glass of water in one hand for me.

I whirled around, sucking in an unsure breath, afraid that he might think I was intruding on his private space.

"What?"

He tipped his chin towards the painting and pushed off the wall to cross to where I was standing frozen to the floor and carefully turned me back towards the painting until I was standing just in front of him, looking once more at the laughing woman and taking a sip of water to calm my nerves.

"The Greeks used to use it as medicine to treat hysteria. Can't anymore though," he mused.

"Why not?"

"Its poison. Stops your heart."

All the blood seemed to drain out of my extremities and my hand holding the now-empty glass started to shake.

_Poison._

_Poison._

_Linnea..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanna know?
> 
> mask: https://beyondmasquerade.com/copy-of-mens-masquerade-masks-phantom-music-notes-black-gold/
> 
> suit (black, oh god please not the purple one) wicked sorry for the long URL, but the short ones don't work!  
> https://www.tbdress.com/product/Dark-Grain-One-Button-Mens-Dress-Suit-13423664.html?currency=USD&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIm-ulnuHo6wIVjMDACh2IQw-OEAQYAiABEgLQe_D_BwE#6719480&tb_from=paid_adwords_shopping&adword_mt=&adword_ct=237713414531&adword_kw=&adword_pos=&adword_pl=&adword_net=u&adword_tar=&adw_id=6389302881_1010694383_55236632332_pla-296877880796 
> 
> shits about to get festive.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY. Sorry, not dead.  
> Depression is hard.  
> Maybe one more chap after this.

My eyes darted around the room, frantically trying to think of an escape while my mind revolted against even the possibility of him intending to hurt me.

Why now?

He'd had so many chances in the past.

Times when we were completely alone and no one on earth would have known it was him if he'd slit my throat and left me to exsanguinate in my own bed.

_I didn't raise a fool, Linnea, do not act like one._

_You've got a good head on your shoulders, Linnea._

_Trust that voice up here that guides you,_ pica _, she's not been wrong yet._

I turned my face over my shoulder to look at him with a steely mask of resolution. He was standing just behind me, close enough that I could feel his heat, as my awareness started to return.

"Do you know an awful lot about poisonous plants, Tim? Have a lot of experience with them?" I didn't mean to sound cold, but he was hinting at something too close to home and I wasn't about to play that kind of game.

Unless he wasn't playing.

He moved closer rather than stepping back, snaking his hand around my waist to press flat against the center of my torso, pulling me back against him as much as he was leaning into me.

"Perhaps...are you afraid that I'm the one who is trying to hurt you?" he breathed, scenting just below my ear where Amora had dabbed a drop of perfumed oil, "or don't you know that I've been watching over you all this time..."

The goosebumps that raised across my skin weren't so much from fear as they were from extreme, instant arousal, and my head rolled to the side, giving him access to the length of my neck as he started pressing hot, unhurried kisses up and down my skin, taking his time like he was savoring me.

His hands ran insistent lines up and down my waist, exploring the shape of my corset appreciatively.

"I've rarely seen you so speechless, your highness," he said lowly in a voice that was half-teasing, pushing further into my space, exploring the control that I subconsciously ceded to him without his needing to ask or instruct.

He couldn't stop the thought that rolled through his mind that I was already doing well. A natural sub, though I was born to be a leader.

What a funny world.

I blinked away some of the clouds and reached back to still his mouth, turning slowly until we were face to face.

"No..." I started voicing my thought slowly, figuring out how to say what was knocking around my head, and he frowned slightly at me like he didn't understand why I was asking him to stop.

"No, not that, not 'stop'," I shook my head again, "I mean...I don't think that you would hurt me...Christ Tim I don't even know anything about you," I laughed without any humor to it, throwing up my hands in exasperation, "I think I've just stopped wondering, to be honest, your resistance has worn me down. Maybe that should make me wary of you--"

"And does it, Princess," he said, interrupting me in that same low voice, keeping an iron grip on his self-control though his eyes were practically burning holes into the base of my throat as he watched my pulse hammer.

"No...it just makes me want more," I whispered, huffing a frustrated sound and grabbing him towards me, thrusting my tongue between his open lips when they met mine.

I just needed more of everything.

More honest revelation, more absolute sincerity, more of the echoing emptiness that settled in my mind when we did this.

But I found that the echoing emptiness didn't come this time.

My brain swirled with a thousand different thoughts that all began and ended with a visceral, primal need for more as he kissed me passionately, gripping my face with both hands, pressing his thumbs into my cheekbones and biting at my lips roughly.

My hands started to shake again as I got lost in his intensity, gripping the material of his sleeves like an anchor.

"Linnea..."

The soft recitation of my name seemed to work magic on me, at once calming and exciting, but reminding me to breathe, to not get lost in the sensation so much that I forgot myself.

I tasted his name on my tongue, something short and clipped but full of sound and vibrations that hung between us like physical waves. His eyes closed slowly as he bit his lip, like he was internally warring with himself.

Tim was a different man when they opened.

"Are you sure that you want to know," he asked slowly, his eyes flicking back to the table laid out with various knives and daggers behind me, "because my tastes range towards the...darker pleasures."

He brushed his thumb across my bottom lip when he said it, and I shivered with that sensation again - somewhere between fear and appreciation, perhaps even some excitement, and nodded towards him after several moments of consideration. In truth I should have taken more probably, but I'd known somehow since the moment I saw them that this was where we were going, and I wanted him too badly to stop now.

"Show me."

He stayed where he was, looking at me with that evaluating stare, and I was faintly surprised that he didn't prop his hands on his hips.

It was that kind of look. The backtracking kind.

"We'll go slowly this time. Until you're...accustomed."

_This time._

The words he chose bounced around my brain, but I nodded again, swallowing against the lump in my throat.

This time implied a next time.

Tim took a slow, almost predatory step towards me, looming over me and crowding into my space as he looked down with fire behind his eyes. His hands touched my elbows, guiding me to turn back towards the table beneath the painting, to face what I'd agreed to explore.

"Choose."

"Any of them?"

"Mmhm," he hummed into my hair, running his nose up the line of my neck and exhaling hotly down the nape of it as he slowly began pulling the pins out one by one to loose the dark mass of my hair, "take your time. Touch them...explore them, princess..."

Despite the distraction, I considered my options carefully before picking the one that had initially caught my eye. It was close to nine inches I guessed, sharp on both edges with a thin braided black linen cord wrapped around the handle to cushion the carrier's hand from the unforgiving hard steel. The blade itself was carved with intricate designs, stems and leaves and etched stars scattered amongst the foliage.

It was as much a work of art as the panting under which it lived.

"Amina," he hummed, reaching around me to touch the named blade as I turned it over in my hands carefully, exploring the texture of the etchings, doing my best not to slice any of my fingers.

"A woman's name?"

"A queen's. Beautiful, but dangerous," he whispered, pressing his lips to my neck and taking the knife from my hands as I trembled.

My head rushed with hot bloodflow, making my cheeks burn as he turned and walked several steps away, crooking a finger at me to follow when I remained standing before the painting, watching him over my shoulder.

"Come to me, Linnea," he beckoned in that same low voice that didn't give my feet a choice but to move, joining him before what I had assumed was another work of art, a broad swath of cloth, blood red in color with carefully embroidered designs.

He refused to let me look away as he flicked his wrist, pulling the cloth down to reveal a tall mirror, a thing nearly stretching to the ceiling and wide enough that I could see myself and several feet of my surroundings on both sides in the reflection.

Oh.

I stared at myself in the mirror.

At him.

My skin was flushed and he was breathing fast as he circled me, learning my dress and considering where he wanted to start, forming his plan in his mind.

Every few seconds he would stop and his eyes would settle at my hammering pulse in my throat as he flipped the blade back and forth across his fingers, the motion almost too fast for me to see, just a flash of bright steel.

I wondered how he never cut himself.

The thought died unspoken as he stopped behind me, reaching around to run his fingers lightly over the expanse of my neck, breathing softly into my ear, careful not to press too much of himself against me.

"I rather like you in this dress, and I don't intend to return you to Amora wearing my clothes, so perhaps we'll spare it this time, hmm?"

There they were again. Those words.

"This time?" I raised both eyebrows at him. It was an awfully quick transition - from not undoing so much as a single button on me to threatening the longevity of my gown.

"Does that mean you believe there will be a next time?"

He stared me down in the mirror, forbidding me from looking anywhere that wasn't his irises swirling with an intoxicating palette of blues and greens.

"I think you'll find that perhaps we are drawn to one another more for our similarities than for our differences," he smirked darkly, his lips curling up to the side under his mustache, "and besides, I think you may enjoy the experience of surrendering to me..."

It was getting hard to breathe in my corset again, and it restrained me so that my breasts swelled over the top of my gown as I tried to inhale and exhale, struggling with my oxygen intake, my hands pressed tight against my abdomen.

I didn't know where he put the knife, because suddenly both of his hands were swiftly untying the laces that kept me tucked into the black satin, letting the loosened material slide down my shoulders as he moved down towards my waist.

"Breathe, princess," he reminded, then a moment later, "slowly."

His gentleness surprised me, but I resolved to stop letting every human quality he showed throw me for a total loop. Underneath the hard exterior, he was a person. Just like me. Perhaps it was easier for him to be stern and harsh, but--

"Tsk tsk tsk," he tutted softly, sliding the flats of his heated palms down my arms to push the long sleeves of my dress down and off over my hands until the material pooled in a ring on the floor with a whisper around my bare legs, "have I've lost your attention already, my dear."

"No, I--"

Tim stepped around to my front and pressed one finger against my lips to silence my excuses.

"Hush. Unless of course you are having second thoughts, in which case now would be the time to tell me..."

I swallowed hard and shook my head.

No second thoughts.

No turning back.

"Tell me what makes me stop," he gently lifted one of my tight curls, stretching it between his fingers and the way the light bounced off of the lock made me understand suddenly.

The realization crashed over me like a wave as I watched the undertones of my hair flash in the low lighting.

_Hellebore is a flower. There are places in the world where it grows black -- well, a very deep shade of purple_

"Hellebore..."

His eyes met mine and he knew I had figured it out.

"Hellebore," he repeated softly, a gentle smile resting across that wonderful mouth.

Tim asked me to lift one foot, then the other, offering a hand to hold onto to steady myself while the opposite pulled the long satin dress off the floor until I was standing in only my underthings, shivering in the cooler air that kissed my overheated skin.

He tossed the heaped material over the back of a chair so it wouldn't get too wrinkled, then was standing right back in front of me, somehow twice as imposing as he'd been before, the tender moment of thoughtfulness gone now.

The dagger I chose appeared in his hand, and I watched the low light glint off of its reflective surface.

"Inhale."

I obeyed.

"Exhale."

I obeyed.

"Slower."

I lengthened each breath, sinking into the pleasant abrogation of responsibility that accompanied obedience.

Maybe he was right.

His braid had fallen over his shoulder when he stooped to pick my dress up off the floor and I reached out to touch it, running my fingers along the thick silky strands, tucked and woven together.

A comment came bubbling up somewhere from the depths of my subconscious and slipped out between my lips before I had a chance to recognize its impropriety or stop it as I watched the light glinting off the rose-gold locks.

"My mother had hair like yours. Amora calls it sunflower hair," I touched it again, picking it up off his shoulder and running it through my hands.

"I know," he said, inhaling slowly, deeply, then taking my hands in his and gently using both to pull the tied band at the end until it started to unravel and he let go, allowing me to unwind the thick sections back and forth through each other on my own.

I'd considered asking him several times when he'd come to me before to take his hair down, mostly because I was curious if he'd look different without the braid, but I'd always felt too self-conscious to go through with it, wondering if he'd think I had some sort of fetish...

I snorted a laugh at the absurdity of my worry. To think now that he of all people would judge me for it.

"Something amusing to you?" he cocked an eyebrow down at me as he watched my slender fingers working though the length of his hair, and I shook my head and leaned forward to kiss him, trusting the euphoria flowing through me in that moment.

I'd never seen him with his hair down and I was instantly floored as his eyes flicked up to mine with so much heat in them that I was momentarily concerned about catching flame as I continued to run my fingers over and over again though his tresses slowly, waiting to hit tangles or snarls though there were none.

His breaths started becoming faster, more stuttered, his chest moving rapidly until he finally caught both of my hands and pulled them from his hair, moving like lightning behind me and holding both of my wrists in one hand down against the center of my hips.

The knife reappeared in his grasp and pressed to the surface of my throat as he devoured my neck again, requiring me to stay still, lest I slide my skin along the blade and slice myself.

I cried out his name as his teeth sank into the base of my neck, just where it met my collarbone, and he moaned heavily into my skin, panting with a combination of pent up need and unending want as he tried to stifle his sounds and failed.

"Watch," he commanded after several moments of collecting himself, releasing my wrists and positioning his arms around me so that the blade was delicately running over the swell of my breast before toying with the top line of laces that pulled my corset tight, humming lowly at the goosebumps that broke out across my skin.

"I need you to be able to breathe without passing out," he caught my reflected stare and watched me bite my lip as I nodded once.

"Good. Do _not_ move."

His eyes remained locked onto mine as he slid the knife down through the ties in one rapid motion, severing them like they were made of nothing stronger than grass.

I gasped, but otherwise I didn't move.

He placed the blade between his lips, reaching back around once he peeled the wasted material away from my skin and tossed it carelessly to the side and cupping both of my bare breasts, needing to feel the warmth of my skin as I pressed back against him and arched into the heat of his palms.

Tim's forehead rested against my hair, just behind my ear as his eyes closed and he breathed out a hot, shuddered breath.

"Linnea," he whispered, his tongue tasting the metallic tang of steel that only further inflamed him.

I felt like I was about to spontaneously combust, and despite all the times he'd let himself into my room, knowing I wouldn't refuse him, I still felt a sense of excitement and adventure. Like somehow I held all the cards, though he was the one in control.

This wasn't the same man that had suddenly appeared in the reflection of my vanity mirror, naming a peculiar flower as my way out of something we both wanted.

"Please," I whispered, trembling with a sense of trepidation as he pressed against me, still fully clothed, though I could feel his erection plainly through the cloth of his pants.

He rolled his hips against my ass as he took the knife in his hand and drew the tip of the blade in a cool, sharp line up the length of my thigh.

I was nearly panting now, my breaths coming far easier without the restrictive corset.

We stared at each other in the mirror, the heat and tension rising until I felt like my very blood was boiling.

"Stay here," he spoke lowly, turning and moving away from me, shedding his shirt and throwing it to the floor before moving back over to the table under the painting, kneeling to reach a small basket on the lower shelf.

I watched his reflection return with a length of silk cloth in his hand and approach me.

"Close your eyes."

I stiffened slightly as he pulled the shiny black material over my closed lids, my hands clenching into fists at my sides as the air started to feel closer around me and my nerves suddenly spiked in the darkness.

He waited a moment to gauge my reaction.

"No, Linnea," he breathed, using his grip on both ends to pull my head back against his shoulder until his lips were at my ear, "you must trust me if you want this..."

When I relaxed after several quiet seconds, he pressed his lips softly to my temple.

"Breathe in."

I did.

"Breathe out."

I did.

"Good girl."

Something about it lit up my nerve endings.

_Good girl._

It was the words no one really had said to me since I was a child. Praising me for being good. Now when I did anything even moderately impressive, it was considered just part of being royalty. I was supposed to be this way. Good and modest and bla bla bla, and certainly _not_ shirking my courtly duties to be subjected to whatever kind of erotic play Tim had in mind.

I shivered hard, pressing back against him, letting my hands wander back over his clothed hips, rubbing them over the hard but lean muscle that seemed to cover his whole frame, sinking my fingers into his flesh.

"That's it," he praised as my hands explored him and he tied the silk scarf in a knot behind my head so that no light penetrated the cloth and I was cast into total darkness.

"The pleasure is more intense if you're deprived of your sight," he breathed, tugging gently at my ear with his teeth just behind the earring that had been part of his gift, making me gasp a sharp moan, "but you must trust me not to hurt you."

As his words sank in, I frowned a little and shook my head.

"I thought hurting me was the point."

Tim froze, one corner of his eye twitching as he looked down at me, my fingers starting to fidget against his thigh in the deafening silence. If he hadn't been touching me, and I him, I would have thought he'd left the room completely.

"The point," he pushed his fingers up into my hair and held me back against his shoulder again, "is to show you that pain and pleasure are so closely intertwined that there is no need to fear one while embracing the other..."

He watched our reflections shamelessly as I surrendered and wrapped my arms up and around his neck, loving the feeling of his soft hair pressing against my sensitive skin. The motion elongated my body, shifting my hips under the lacy teal band of my panties.

"Are you listening to me, Linnea..." his voice was barely a breath, like if he spoke too loudly he would ruin the moment.

"Yes," I answered mechanically, rubbing my fingers through his hair again and settling my shoulders more firmly against his chest.

"Stay still."

I shivered violently but otherwise stayed where I was as I felt the cold metal point drawing a sensual line over my skin, contrasting perfectly with the overheated surface of my body. It wandered down my sternum, under the swell of my breast, dancing down over my stomach as I held my breath until it slid across my hips.

"Pain. And pleasure, Linnea," he reminded me, letting his opposite hand slide out of my hair and down my waist, pressing into my skin in a purposeful way.

His fingers slipped beneath my panties and a sound that was both a sharp gasp and a pleasured cry left my lips as his middle finger pressed against my clit at the same time that the knife nicked my thigh.

It was shallow - hardly more than a papercut, and really was barely enough to draw blood, but it had felt more like fireworks in combination with the movement of him fingers, heightening the sensation, and I was beginning to understand now what he meant about the intertwining of both feelings.

Tim panted hotly into my ear, watching the crimson line on my thigh bead with blood in the mirror. Not enough to spill down my skin, just enough to make his point. His fingers continued to rub slow circles around my clit, loving the way it made me buckle and grab his hips behind me just so I had something to hold onto and not crumble to the floor.

There was a slight jump from the blade and the soft sound of fabric tearing, and he nudged one of his knees against the inside of mine to separate them slightly so that my severed panties could fall to the floor.

There.

That was how he'd envisioned me.

Nothing on, save for the necklace and the earrings that had been his gift.

His hips rolled hard against my ass in a way that made me suck in a breath and moan his name as he watched his hand moving between my legs as he cupped me.

Tim cursed softly and pulled away, tucking the blade under his belt and stepping around to my front to take both of my hands with his.

I was acutely aware of the wetness that covered one.

"Come with me, Linnea," he said quietly, his voice full of dark promise.

I followed mechanically, like I'd never dreamed of doing anything else, listening to the soft shuffling sounds of his footfalls as he led me, feeling the chill of flagstones under my own feet.

It was hard to tell where we were without my sight - I really hadn't gotten a good idea of the layout of his rooms, being too busy gasping for breath when I got in, then too distracted by his kiss afterwards to process anything more than basic sensory information.

Both of his hands dropped mine to settle at my bare waist, and I could feel the heat of his body as he stepped closer.

"May I?" he whispered, receiving a nod from me as I placed both hands on his shoulders instinctively and he guided me back onto what I assumed was his bed, based on the feel of soft fabric underneath me once I was set down.

I moved back until I felt a pillow under my head and he hummed with satisfaction, watching me splayed out comfortably. He hadn't dared to ever think of me here before, but once the image was presented before him, he could hardly remember ever wanting me any other way.

A soft whisper of fabric falling to the floor preceded the bed dipping next to me, and his breathing got closer, accompanying the feverish heat of his body, just inches away from me.

"Still," he reminded me in a husky voice, falling silent as my body stopped moving, becoming like a statue as I felt the cool steel kissing my flesh again.

He started on my thigh once more, working his way up.

My skin broke out in sharp goosebumps, the tip of the knife somehow feeling both welcome and foreign, scratching across my flesh with just enough pressure to leave a faint red line in its wake as I tried hard to control my ragged breathing.

Tim watched the hollow between my ribcage rising and falling, the subtle twitches and tiny gasps as I experienced a sensation unlike anything I'd ever known before. Being completely at the mercy of another, close enough to taste danger, yet knowing only the faintest hint of its flavor.

He stayed slow, letting me get used to the experience, to the sensation, watching my parted lips moving every so often in a slight gasp.

He gripped the base of his erection with his free hand, desperate for friction but fighting for self control, giving himself long, slow strokes, tasting the pleasure of it but denying himself anything more for the moment.

The point traced each length of my finger before dancing along the thin skin of my inner wrist so lightly that it almost tickled.

Tim continued to move up my body this way, appreciating the way I stayed still, save for the shivers that coursed through me every few minutes when he touched a particularly sensitive patch of skin.

"You're a wonder," he said softly, the first words he'd really spoken since he started, and the sharp point traced carefully across one of my nipples before he pressed the cool flat against it, listening to me hiss with pleasure.

Every movement Tim made was carefully controlled, like the delicate knife was a natural extension of his hand, something he had complete mastery of.

He watched me shiver and gasp, involuntarily pressing into the cold steel, seeking more pressure.

Not this time though.

The last thing he needed was to have Amora find tiny cuts all over my skin and demand answers.

He was close to the king, and knew the older man trusted him quite literally with his life, but even that trust had its limits when it came to politics and the wellbeing is his daughter and heir to his kingdom.

Tim shook his head and reined in his wandering thoughts when I spoke his name softly, sensing his distraction.

He signed and leaned down to press his lips against mine, surprising me, but pleasantly so.

'Tender' wasn't ever a word that appeared in my Tim-Vocabulary, but I was beginning to suspect I'd have to add it.

Gods, what was I even going to do now? How was I supposed to politely ignore him in public like before? How was I ever supposed to look at him now and not think about the sheer animal magnetism staring back at me in the mirror?

Now I was the one getting distracted, and Tim hummed a low laugh, pressing the knifepoint against the base of my sternum just hard enough to get my attention once more.

"You're wandering."

"Sorry," I shook my head, turning it towards him, wishing I could see.

"Hush," he breathed, pressing the flat of the dagger just barely against my lips, watching my breath fog over the metal as I whispered his name, my tongue slipping from between my lips to taste the steel.

The noise he made was guttural and low as he carefully drew the knife across my tongue, trusting me to read him.

The tip pressed against my tongue as the blade went into my mouth. It wasn't slid or pushed, not in a way that would cut me, but more...drawn in. Like he was letting me explore it at my own pace.

The etched designs added texture and I breathed a soft sound as he carefully withdrew it, being cautious and slow enough not to cut me, knowing my movements in the same way that I knew his.

The knife disappeared and he bent down to kiss me slowly, a thing full of barely-restrained passion and energy.

"Turn over," he rasped.

My hands moved over the coverlet on both sides of me, ensuring there was enough room so I wouldn't topple off the side, but both of his met my waist, holding me with a firm grip and guiding me until my face was laying against the pillow where my head had just been.

He hissed out a low breath that made my back arch as he watched me, his eyes tracing over every line and curve.

My ribs expanded and relaxed with each deep breath. My leg muscles flexed with the apprehension of waiting. My blindfold twitched and moved like I was blinking underneath it, trying to see where he was, trying to learn his next move as I lifted my head and laid my face towards him.

He muttered something I didn't understand, I assumed in his native tongue, and then he was there, smothering me.

The heat coming off his body was like an inferno, a blazing, feverish warmth that made me press back against him, seeking more as I gasped at the sensation and sudden temperature spike.

He knew how I would move and how I would bend, intuiting each reaction before my brain had a chance to make my muscles work, and he again pressed the point of the knife against my skin, drawing it in a smooth line over my shoulder. moving less slowly this time, though the level of caution remained the same.

Tim rolled his hips against me, tracing the curve of my shoulder blade with his tongue as the sharp point pressed against the nape of my neck, moving in a whisper-light path down my spine under his heated gaze.

He moaned encouragingly as my muscles tensed and my back arched at the sensation, forcing me to press my ass harder into him reflexively.

"Good," he praised, placing heated, lingering kisses across my reddened skin, listening to the sound of his lips breaking away, echoing off the walls around us as he continued to run the knife over my skin, playing with varying degrees of pressure, switching between the tip and the edges and the flat.

A breathy sigh left me as he pulled me onto my side so my back was to his front and I reached back to run my fingertips over his bare hip, tracing the bony ridge up to his pelvic muscles, drawing a mental picture.

He played with me slowly, building my passion, my desperation, then letting it ebb, and he continue this way in repeated cycles until I could feel my own wetness coating my thighs.

"I think that's enough for one night," he said lowly and I leaned further back into him, his body something so familiar even as I'd never experienced him this way before.

Not even close.

Silence fell again, and even though he'd said enough, he continued to trace lazy, unhurried patterns across my body with the point of the dagger.

I got the sense that it wasn't so much about me experiencing the sensation any longer, but more about him enjoying the visual as I calmed down, relaxed into the solid surface of his body.

"Tim?"

He hummed in acknowledgement, tracing the long edge of the dagger in a horizontal line up my thigh as he rolled me further back against him until our bodies were pressed flush together on our sides.

He nipped at my ear, breathing a low laugh at the way it made me gasp.

I swallowed hard.

"I...I won't break."

There was a pause.

"Breaking you isn't the goal."

"I meant," I tugged my blindfold off despite his noise of disagreement and turned my face over my shoulder to look at him. His mouth covered mine before I could finish my thought, dipping his tongue in as he placed one hand flat against my belly to pull me back harder against him.

A flash of light caught my eye as I tried to turn and roll on top of him, and my head whipped up, only to be met with...

...huh?

"Do you like it?"

I froze for several long moments, cocking my head in confusion.

"How did you even get that thing up there?" I finally asked his reflected stare, watching me intently from the ceiling.

For a man I'd really never seen crack a smile in five years, the look he gave me was at once terrifying and bewitching and it sent a shiver through me.

"Gods, who are you," I asked as I shook my head, really only half-joking.

He gave me a lingering, penetrating look before growling low in his throat and rolling on top of me, obscuring my view for a moment as his tongue filled my mouth, tasting every part of me slowly and methodically before moving down to work my neck and my breasts.

My nerve endings all lit up like fireworks under his lips and I tangled my fingers into his hair reflexively as my back bowed into his mouth.

He glanced up at me as the tip of his tongue laved over one of my nipples, like he was daring me to ask again, to find out the answer that I may or may not want to know.

I whispered his name and ran my fingers down the side of his face softly, wondering how he was so different now than he'd been even hours before in the training ring.

"Let me do this," he breathed, and I panted and nodded my head frantically.

He bit out a sharp, huffed breath and flung the dagger hard, end over end, until the tip bit into the wood of his bedside table with a thud and then he was gone, pressing echoing, heated kisses down my body until he was at my hips, breathing across each bony ridge.

"Do you remember your word?" he asked lowly, his mouth panting for breath as his brain remembered to ask this one thing first.

"Yes. Gods, don't stop," I gasped, pushing on the crown of his head like I was possessed, desperate to feel that wonderful tongue where I'd only dreamed of it before.

His low laugh seemed to fill the entire space around us, swirling around me, tucking under my shoulders, into my hair as my fingers gripped his locks tight and my eyes met my own reflection on the ceiling.

Oh my gods.

It was a spectacle unlike anything I'd ever imagined.

I was torn between watching Tim and watching his reflection as he drew his tongue in a slow, torturous line up my seam, wiggling his tongue between my lower lips and flicking it over my clit when he felt the nub under his tongue.

He moaned a low sound and curled his arms around my thighs, holding me open for him as he abandoned his reason, everything he knew that wasn't my essence igniting his senses, my warmth pressing harder against his face.

I shrieked despite myself, the feeling of him consuming me instantly too much and somehow also not nearly enough as I planted my feet and rolled my hips into his tongue, seeking more pressure, more friction on my throbbing clit.

He worked me attentively and in a matter of minutes I was shaking like a reed, grasping his hair by the roots and lifting my hips off the bed, crushing myself against his face as he snarled obscene encouragements.

"Ohh-oh my g--oh shit--"

My orgasm hit me like a force of nature and I gasped for breath and tore my fingers through his luxurious mane as he sucked my clit between his lips and pressed two fingers inside me, twisting and fluttering them to extend my high.

He carried on that way until was a gasping, twitching mess, melting into the softness of his bed, inhaling his scent wrapped around my head on his pillow, humming and running my fingers through his hair.

"How do you feel," his voice was suddenly overtop of me, though I'd hardly felt him move.

"Just promise me we're not training tomorrow," I laughed breathlessly, receiving an indulgent smirk that I still wasn't quite used to yet.

I was riding high on my endorphin rush and playfully traced the lines of his mustache as he stared down at me wordlessly.

"Don't worry, I won't tell the king that you have a soft and tender side. Wouldn't want to ruin your stern reputation," I giggled.

He cocked a semi-unimpressed eyebrow at me.

"Soft and Tender isn't really my thing, or did you not understand that I was taking it easy on you..."

My lips snapped shut and a momentary look of panic crossed my face as he smirked down at me before pulling his knees forward under my thighs, opening me to him, and sheathing himself inside me with one smooth motion.

My gasp and my scream intertwined into one sound as my nails dug into his skin and he snarled at me like an animal.

"There she is, there's that temper," he sneered, thrusting into me hard, goading me into responding, though in truth I knew better,

"Did you miss me," I bared my teeth at him lifting my hips off the mattress to meet his next stroke, taking him so far inside me that the pressure of his tip against my cervix made me buckle.

"That boy you were dancing with is a fool," he bit out, surprising me with both the change of topic and the force with which he said it.

Oh gods.

"Are you jealous of a man destined for the church?" I smirked, biting his neck and drawing a loud moan from him as he started thrusting into me harder, the sound of flesh on flesh echoing off the stone walls around us.

"Only the ones who get to touch you and call it courtly sport."

He didn't let me respond, rather taking my mouth in a searing, passionate kiss, like he was trying to devour me where I lay, his hips stuttering into mine as his fingers slipped between our bodies.

"You'll never think of him like this though," he snarled, and I watched above us as the muscles of his body worked, the long ones running down his back, the rounded, firm ones of his ass and his thighs. They all worked in harmony, combining with the slipping of his fingers back and forth over my clit until I was standing at the edge of the most intense buildup of pleasure I'd ever experienced.

"No..." Tim continued his thought, chuckling darkly into my neck as he bit at my skin, "you'll always be mine this way...you'll always know the kiss of pain and pleasure at my hand...you'll always come undone for me, Linnea..."

He whispered my name and sent a shiver down my spine that made me explode into a knockout orgasm when it hit my pussy.

My walls and the ring of muscle at my entrance closed around him and forced him to meet his climax too, shouting his pleasure into my skin, giving me every ounce of raw animal passion that he'd been harboring.

I was left breathing stuttered gasps underneath him, tracing the bright red welts down his back with shaking fingers until he lifted his head and obscured my vision.

He was covered in a sheen of sweat and panting, staring down at me with an expression that I couldn't read. It wasn't quite like he was masking himself, but nor were his emotions there to be interpreted.

His lips moved like he wanted to say something.

They always did.

At that moment right when we both were coming down from the clouds, from the blissful mental emptiness, there was always something just behind his lips that he was fighting to keep under control.

"Dearest one," he whispered, leaning down to kiss me slowly, consumingly, until my fingers were stroking through his hair slowly, carefully working through the snarls that I'd put there in the first place.

His hips pressed against me more firmly for one more moment before he pulled back, slipping out of me with a low sound that made my toes curl.

Tim rolled off me onto his back, worming his arm underneath my shoulders until I rolled onto my side and tucked into him, staring at the far wall as he gazed up at our reflections.

"Doesn't it ever startle you at night? Waking up and immediately seeing everything in the room?" I asked after several long minutes of nothing but breathing.

He huffed a short laugh underneath my cheek.

"I prefer to know my surroundings all the time, Princess. It keeps me alert."

Ah, yes.

That brought us back to that little tidbit he'd shared earlier.

"Tim?" I asked quietly.

He hummed in response, drifting his fingers up and down my arm once he tucked us under the covers and resumed his watching on the ceiling.

"Can I ask where you come from?"

"You can," he started slowly, chewing his lower lip for a moment as he turned his face to look at the way my hair splayed out on the pillow.

He tipped my chin up briefly.

"But I think you already know the answer, don't you..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sad Timmy left social media. 
> 
> ::brief rant::  
> If you fucking DARE to make that man uncomfortable repeatedly to the point of leaving social media by brazenly flaunting your fucking misplaced lust for him out in the open, and I find out who you are, I will come for you in your nightmares. 
> 
> Anonymous fanfiction to vent emotion and get this shit out of your head is one thing, and I think all of us here understand that and do our best to support each other in it. Its escapism in its most potent, non-narcotic form. But making an ass of yourself right in front of him and drawing him into it (this goes for all the boys as well I suppose) is rude and barbaric and so fucking unnecessary. 
> 
> Make good choices.  
> Sweet dreams, children.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞ AYYY ☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜)

I blinked rapidly, looking away as my eyes closed and I felt the tears building behind my eyelids.

"Sunflower hair..."

I remembered him responding with "I know," when I told him my mother had had hair like his, that same exquisite rose-gold color. Like the hues of the sun were weaving themselves into the tresses of a mortal.

Tim pulled the thick mass of locks in question down over his opposite shoulder so he could lay on his back more comfortably, and I toyed with the ends, twirling them around my fingers as he watched me silently.

His fingertips rubbed absent circles over my skin in time with the movements of my own. Back and forth. Clockwise and counterclockwise.

The minutes ticked past in silence, and he pulled me closer as I frowned slightly, showing that little bit of tender humanity that I was still unused to from him, and he stroked his fingers slowly through my own dark hair, chancing a gentle kiss against my hairline that I sighed into.

It was hypnotic in a way, the movement of his fingers - slow and repetitive and relaxing as he eased me into a comfortable silence to gather my thoughts.

I figured he was going to let me draw my own conclusions and not speak any further on the matter, but I was wrong.

"My...home...is Calla. To the west."

I nodded, having put that much together already from his previous comment. I considered my response for a moment, trying to figure out the most tactful way to ask what he was doing here without sounding suspicious, but he continued before I had a chance to speak.

"My mother was a close friend of the late queen's. Well, she was princess then, I suppose, back before she came here..."

Out of all the things he'd revealed to me about himself since he'd brought me here, that floored me beyond everything else and I raised up on my elbow to look at him with a shocked expression as I backed away a few inches.

"What??"

"No no, come back down," he pulled me back to where I was before, stroking his fingers over my forehead and back down my hair again soothingly, repetitively, even as I got the impression that it was so he didn't have to look me in the eye as he spoke.

"I..." he took a deep breath, like he was considering how to phrase his thought, but didn't say anything else at first, making a resigned sound that seemed a lot like a period on the end of his thought.

I rolled onto my stomach, shifting under his arm until I could look at him face to face, resting on my elbows but still tucked into the warmth of his body.

Tim's expression was unsure, and he bit at his top lip as he glanced away like he was wondering if he'd said too much.

I knew that look. It had taken me months to wipe it off my face any time someone had spoken about my own mother after she was gone.

His was probably dead then, too.

I couldn't help but think of the laughing woman in the painting with the rosy hair peaking out from under her head-covering.

"Hey," I chanced a return of the tenderness and reached up to stroke my fingers along his face, "if its too hard to talk about her, that's fine...I understand."

Tim looked at me for several quiet seconds, his eyes roaming over my face, resting at my lips as I chewed at them, now my own turn to be unsure.

Somehow even after all the time that had passed and everything he'd shown me, he still made me nervous when he stared at me like that.

"She's been dead for...quite some time," he said flatly.

"I'm sorry," I shook my head and looked away. Most of the time I'd known him, I'd been too wrapped up in my curiosity about his own personal details to even think any further on his family.

"What about your father? Still back in Calla?"

"Imagine so," he nodded, stiffly avoiding any further discussion of the man.

He tucked me back against his chest, pulling my left hand into his right and laying it at the apex of his ribcage, so we could both feel the rising and falling of his chest in time with his breathing.

Minutes passed in silence again and I thought he might have fallen asleep, his lips resting against my forehead, his breaths soft and even.

My own thoughts wandered, my curiosity sparked once again by this strange land to the west that no one ever talked to me about.

Calla.

It was spoken of in hushed whispers, like its very name was profanity.

Perhaps it was. But wasn't I half Callan?

All I knew was that my grandfather, who I'd never met and only knew of by name, was displeased to the extreme when my mother married my father. He didn't want the two kingdoms joined, so he disowned her, withdrawing all titles and claims that she'd had since birth.

I glanced up at the mirror on the ceiling when I realized that this was my chance.

I was going to be the ruler of this kingdom someday, and I needed all the information I could get, even when it was refused to me by my father. Maybe we could be allies again. Maybe there was a way to resign the past to the past and not let the decision of two people sever political ties forever.

Tim was awake, his eyes roaming over the reflected lines of my figure as the fingertip of his left hand slowly danced up and down my waist.

"What's he like? The king...my mother never talked about him..."

An echo of conflicting orders sounded in Tim's mind, and he clamped his lips shut against his response, forcing himself to endure my questions in silence as his hand stopped its path of travel and dropped limply against the sheets.

_Tell her of me, the daughter. Then do what you must. I want her to perish with seeds of doubt plaguing her. I want her to know the man her father is._

_She will know nothing of the foul creature, Tim. Promise me you'll not speak of him or of Calla to her...she can't be tainted by his insatiable greed...when--…when the time is right, she and I will talk._

My heart sank when he didn't answer me, and I cringed with the feeling of being used like a cheap toy as he continued to stare at the ceiling.

He'd shown such tenderness only moments before, but--

No.

But what? What more should I have expected?

_He's a courtier._

_Its just a game to him._

_One I should know how to play by now..._

I shook my head at his silence and sat up, about to get up and find my dress then get back to Amora. I couldn't help but long for her motherly presence and the desire disturbed me.

Wasn't this whole dalliance's that we were carrying on something like mutual exploitation? Something I'd gotten myself into as an adult and should have been able to deal with the repercussions and side effects of like one?

My fingers settled at the emerald pendant as I swallowed hard, but a firm grip caught my opposite hand as I moved to stand and leave.

"Linnea," he sat up quickly, reaching for me as I swung my legs over to put my feet on the floor, "don't go..."

I stared for a moment at the dagger, the razor-sharp point embedded and probably dulled by being flung so carelessly into the wooden nightstand. It reflected the light and the scenery around the room so that the vines and flowers etched into the metal seemed to writhe like serpents.

"I should not have asked such personal questions," I switched back to my courtly formality, that tone I reserved for politely greeting visiting dignitaries or others of lower ranking than myself, pulling my hand from his grasp and settling it with the other in my lap.

"I need to get back now, I'm sure Lucan will wonder where I've wandered off to and be searching. Thank you for your help, I am sorry to have burdened you."

But as I moved to stand again, he anchored his arm around my waist and pulled me back, pinning me onto the bed as he rolled onto his side and tucked his legs underneath mine.

"Stay...stay with me, please."

"Tim--" I struggled to move out of his grasp but he was stronger than me and his arm around my waist was like an iron bar. I wanted to tell him that I probably _did_ need to go, and that Lucan probably _was_ about to have a coronary searching for me, but I couldn't bring myself to put any heart behind it.

"There are so many things I want to tell you and can't, Linnea," he whispered, interrupting me anyways and scenting up the line of my neck, making me shiver, "but you just have to trust me..."

"How can I possibly trust you when you won't be straight with me?" I countered, rolling over to face him when I realized that trying to get up was futile anyways.

There was a long moment of silence and I felt the tension stiffen his muscles, like he was clenching all of them, and I could see him grinding his teeth together behind his lips.

We were standing at a crossroads, I realized.

This was where we had a choice.

We could take one path to continue mindlessly engaging in casual sex for mutual benefit, largely ignoring each other in the real world except when duty required us to share a room. That was a world where he watched me live my life, and I exhibited muted curiosity about the strange presence who was always there, lurking in the background.

Or, we could turn towards the other path and go deeper. Explore boundaries and wants, likes and dislikes, all of those small components and choices that differentiated us as people. A path where we made the choice to be exposed and vulnerable and trusting...

I swallowed hard as I realized that I was already moving down my path of choice.

But he just looked at me, obviously warring with himself over his answer.

He was still at the crossroads.

"What is it," I shook my head with a slight frown, never having seen this kind of apprehension on his face before as I touched the two parallel lines that furrowed his eyebrows, trying to smooth his worry, "what are you not telling me?"

"No, its nothing, forgive me I should not have brought it up," he shook his head and I winced, pulling back as my stomach sank again, deeper this time, but I nodded.

This was his choice to make, and the nature of choices was that sometimes the outcomes weren't always what we wanted.

I twisted my shoulders to lay them flat on the bed away from him, looking up at my body reflected back down, watching the way the long muscles of my legs tapered off, and how my hair glistened in the low light, the faint red lines scrawled across my skin feeling a little like scars now.

"You never knew her, did you," I said quietly after several minutes of nothing but breathing, not meeting his eyes as mine continued to roam over our reflections. There was no denying the carnal beauty of our legs still twisted together, our hips touching like we were both part of the same tangled root system, our centers held close to one another. The hair on his chest was darker than the hair on his head and I shifted on my side so I could gently run my fingers through it.

Perhaps it wasn't going to be more, but for the moment, I longed for that quiet solace that came from his body pressing against mine.

"Who?" he watched my fingers drifting back and forth absentmindedly, making a low, quiet sound when they brushed across his nipple.

"The queen. Late queen," I corrected myself.

He blinked slowly but didn't respond, listening to me murmur my thoughts in a quiet tone, letting one drift into the next.

"You'd have liked her. She was so much fun, and had that kind of laugh that you feel like makes you want to laugh too," I smiled, absentmindedly circling my fingers in a spot on his chest until he caught them up in his hand and pressed a gentle kiss to the tips.

"She had the most beautiful hair. It was like yours, but yellower and longer...I loved when she let me play with it when I was little," I said as I stroked my finger through his, shifting under his arm so that we were facing each other again and I could more fully touch the wonderful, thick tresses that fell over his shoulder.

He huffed out a sharp breath through his nose as I pressed my hips closer, encouraging him when I felt him start to stiffen again as I repeatedly pulled my fingers through the soft mass and his eyes closed with a low moan.

Tim's hands wrapped around me again, pulling my body flush with his as he gripped one of my thighs and pulled it up over his hip, exposing my center enough so that he could grind his cock against me.

He took it slow, letting his hands explore me, gently running the pads of his fingers back down my shoulder blades and my spine, from the nape of my neck down to my hips, keeping up a steady rhythm of rolling his thickness through my folds.

"Please...just...just..." I whispered, not sure exactly what I wanted from him. 

"Tell me you trust me," he moaned softly, pressing his tongue between my lips before I got a chance to answer, then tangling his fingers roughly into my hair in the next second, gripping it by the roots and kissing me fiercely, deeply, switching gears yet again with enough abruptness to give me whiplash.

"Tell me why I should," I countered, pulling back panting as I slid my hand between our bodies and wrapped it around his cock, shifting him so his tip started pressing inside me.

The sounds he made as he pushed further into me seemed to vibrate through my bones, and he ground his forehead against mine, losing himself in my tight heat when he finally bottomed out, rolling his hips.

My responding gasp at the pressure made up his mind for him and Tim spoke before he had a chance to stop himself.

"Because I was sent to dispatch you, and just now would've been a pretty good opportunity if I was going to..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHATS THIS? SHE'S USING THE SAME CLIFF-HANGER AGAIN??  
> You're damn right I am. 
> 
> Okay I really mean it this time when I say I think we only have one chapter left and then I'll stop getting so distracted with the one-shots, I swear. 😅


	6. Chapter 6

His whole body stiffened, but seemed then to immediately relax with that particular relief that comes from airing the truth once he said it, even as mine froze, my eyes wide and my fight response warring with the flight one as I stared at him.

"Linnea, listen to me," he said softly, but the pounding of my pulse in my ears drowned out everything, and the colors in his hair started to run together as my mouth moved soundlessly.

Knife play was one thing, but confessing to honest intentions of violence was entirely another.

_Linnea..._

_Linnea..._

_Linnea..._

I snarled and rolled quickly, clamping my fingers around his throat as I caught him off guard and trapped his wrists under my knees, straddling him and pinning him to the bed, even as he was still buried inside me.

" _Murderer_...you killed them!"

He didn't push me off or physically startle, but the expression on his face took me by surprise as he shook his head a little, moving his mouth to silently say my name again, staring up at me.

I kept him pinned but let up enough so he could speak,

"Not...me..." he uttered calmly.

"Not you what. Not you who killed Otho's wife? And that serving girl? What about the chapel attendant? Or the groundskeeper's daughter?? Liar!"

My rage seemed to channel itself into my fingertips and as he shook his head once I bore back down harder, keeping my grip.

"I don't believe you, and neither will my father, you backstabbing, traitorous son-of-a--"

His lips split into a savage snarl underneath me and threw me off of him before I could finish, forcing me to tumble off the side of the bed with a surprised cry and him with me as we both crashed to the floor, both of us trying to get the better of the other.

"You royals are a stubborn fucking breed. Didn't I just answer you?! _Didn't I just tell you that it wasn't me?!_ "

He pinned my arms above my head, grinding my wrists into the cold stone floor without apology.

"You just said--"

"That I was sent to dispatch you, yes, but for all the love of the gods you insane woman, where is your sense," he hissed, "if I was going to hurt you why would I wait to do it here, in my own rooms, rather than one of the dozens of nights spent in yours? Why would I draw unnecessary attention to myself by remaining close to you all the time--"

"You're not close to me all the time! I hardly ever see you anywhere but the main hall!" I yelled, interrupting him and struggling against his hold, jerking on my arms to no avail.

"You're not meant to see me," he looked me straight in the eye, bending closer to snarl against my mouth, "but I'm always there, Linnea... _always_."

We both breathed hard, staring at each other as his words washed over me and I stopped fighting.

My mind balked suddenly at the logical conclusion that it must have been him - he was the only Callan I'd ever met, and certainly the only one at court. He'd admitted that it was why he'd been sent here in the first place...

But--

I pulled on my hands more gently until he released them from his grasp and I reached down with one to curl my fingers around the necklace.

"Why," I asked, not giving him anything more to determine the rest of my question, but his eyes rested at the base of my throat as his mouth split into a pleasured grin that was the slightest touch feral.

"Because I wanted everyone to see, on this one night when they were all gathered together. Even if they saw and didn't understand. Because in the darkest, most secret part of your heart, you're mine, Linnea, and you know that, and you've known it from the day we met," he growled as he bent his head to crush his mouth against mine, thrusting his tongue roughly between my lips and shifting between my thighs so I could wrap my legs around him.

Tim devoured me like a man starved, crushing me into the stones, roughing my skin against them, but I didn't care.

I was overwhelmed by him, unable to process anything more than the fact that I _did_ trust him.

I shouldn't have and probably needed to run for my life, but I couldn't.

Even now I was drawn to him, pulled into his orbit like a moth to a flame.

He leaned all his weight into me, rolling his cock over my core repeatedly before sitting up and back on his knees, grabbing me around the hips and yanking me towards him, uncaring that I was getting scraped in the process.

An approving moan filled the airspace around us as I lifted on the balls of my feet, rolling my hips against his erection, loving the feeling and the weight of him sliding through my folds until he tilted just enough to start pressing inside me again.

He groaned as I started shifting my weight back and forth on and off my shoulders, rocking myself up and down his cock as my eyes rolled back at the intense pressure of him against my frontal wall.

It felt like the physical manifestation of a visual lightshow, and I cried out when Tim's thumb started working rapid, slick circles over my clit as he panted, watching where we were joined with his mouth hanging open, unable to look away.

"No one is ever going to harm you," he breathed on a stuttered moan, unaware that he was even speaking, "not when I'm here."

I knew now that he wouldn't hurt me, that it wasn't him who had been preying on a seemingly random selection of women to poison, but I was still left with little in the way of answers.

Tim started rolling his hips in time with mine, watching me slide on and off his cock, but a sudden, intense wave of fear coursed through me and I found myself pushing him away, rolling us and reaching up to yank the dagger out of the nightstand in one quick motion that seemed to surprise even him.

"If I find out it was you," I panted, holding the edge of the blade against his throat so that it dug into his skin as I took him inside me again until he bottomed out, "I will paint this entire castle with your blood and the gods themselves won't be able to stop me."

His fingers tightened, curling against my hips and forcing me up and down his length as he lifted his head and pressed his throat harder against the sharp edge and looked straight at me, exploding with a feral shout, a primal scream that made all my hair stand on end as he bucked his hips hard into me, his hair splayed out around him like some sort of licentious halo.

Wave after wave of his release filled me as he cried out his pleasure, until he was leaking out of me and making a mess of us both, the muscles of his abdomen flexing and relaxing as he finally calmed and shuddered underneath me, gasping for air.

He was a work of art that rivaled even the most passionately crafted still-life in his collection and I leaned forward as his breathing slowed, leaving the dagger where it was but kissing his panting mouth slowly, deeply, tasting his pleasure and his conviction.

"Promise me that what you're saying is the truth, Tim. Promise me that none of it has been you."

His eyes were calmer when they opened, and he leaned up to press his forehead against mine, taking my hand in his and gently removing the blade from his throat.

"On pain of death, I swear it," he whispered, wrapping an arm around my waist to keep me where I was as he slipped out of me and sat up, reaching up to press his mouth to mine again, murmuring things in that other language again that I'd guessed was the one he'd spoken most of his life.

He kissed me that way until he was sufficiently convinced that I believed him, barely letting his lips leave mine, breathing against me, encouraging my surrender with soft touches and low sounds.

"I don't understand," I laid my forehead against his as he tucked his legs under him, sitting up straighter as his hands roamed up and down my back, his thumbs caressing the sides of my breasts, teasing against the soft flesh as he held me close to the feverish heat of his body. My free hand stroked through his hair, brushing away any snarls gently as I waited for an answer, running the edge of the dagger up and down his lithe frame with the other. 

"You have to stop that if you want me coherent," he chuckled quietly after several minutes and I dropped the weapon, the clanking sound of it against the floor sounding intrusive and too loud.

"Up," he patted my hip twice, lifting me by the waist until I got my feet under me. I stumbled a step as the bloodflow returned to my cramped legs, and he caught my hand, pulling me in close again and searching my eyes.

"I don't have any answers for you yet, princess," he shook his head with a sigh, pressing a lingering kiss to my forehead as he stared at the far wall, "but I will...come, Amora will be worried."

He took me by the hands again, walking backwards and leading me like he had before though I'd been blindfolded at the time, and his thumbs stroked repeatedly back and forth over the tops of my hands.

"What now? What are we supposed to--"

Tim touched a finger to my lips and shook his head.

"You just do what you've been doing. Stay vigilant. Work hard in training. Leave the rest to me."

"Hey woah, wait a second," I grabbed his hand when he turned away as we entered the room with the painting and the mirror, "you can't just tell me you were sent to kill me and not give me any details! I...I need to know more, Tim. Who are you..."

His eyes flicked around the room and his mustache twitched like he was chewing his lip again, eventually meeting my no-nonsense expression and sighing.

"Fine. Stay here," he said, leaving me in front of the mirror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> does this thing even have an ending?
> 
> Not yet.


	7. Chapter 7

He left and returned shortly, laying pants and a shirt for himself over the back of the chair with my dress, and returning to me with a warm damp cloth.

There was a brief moment where he met my gaze in the mirror before dipping the cloth between my legs, cleaning both of us off of my skin with quiet, gentle strokes.

"I will...I will try to answer your questions, Princess," he uttered in a barely audible tone, looking away from me now like he was afraid he might regret the decision.

Tim's eyes flicked up to mine, the color there like the swirling depthless waters of the ocean, and he held my gaze there for several seconds.

"Ask, Linnea," he said softly, like he was savoring the taste of my name.

"Will you tell me who sent you?" I wasn't sure how many questions he'd answer, but I was going to ask until he told me to stop.

"The king," he answered after several minutes of silence, occupied by him carefully stroking over my skin with the damp cotton cloth.

"Your king?"

His eyes were blazing when they met mine in the mirror and I stiffened under their intensity.

"He is _not_ my king. Not anymore."

His hand not holding the cloth clenched against my skin for a moment, releasing with a murmured apology when I winced at the pinching of my flesh.

"Why me? I know he was...disappointed with my parents' marriage, but...why me? I've never even met him," the unease crept into my voice for a moment before I straightened up, squaring my shoulders and lifting my chin the way I'd been taught.

 _Be fearless, my beloved daughter,_ her voice echoed, _you are born of a great king. A warrior. Truthful. Honest. Just. Have no reservations about the world you face, for nothing and no one can overcome the power of your birthright._

This foreign king that was my blood relative was only a concept. No name, no face. Just an idea of a man far to the west who ruled an adjacent land. More or less a neighbor. Surely he was no one compared to the goodness and honesty I'd seen rule my father for so many years.

"Come, Linnea, use your head," he chastised, clucking his tongue at me twice but not meeting my stare, even when he got to his feet and disposed of the cloth he'd been using to clean us both up.

I watched his reflection turn towards the chair, stepping into his pants and pulling his shirt on over his head, then returning to me with the dress.

I held my arms out for the garment, mentally figuring out the best way to get back into the damn thing, but he shook his head at me, motioning for me to turn back towards the mirror.

"You're flexible, I'll grant, but not _that_ flexible," he chuckled, breaking the solemnity of the moment and fussing with the ties to untangle them before kneeling once more, holding open the top wide enough for me to step into it.

"I could get about half of them myself," I said defensively, bringing a little grin to the corner of his lips again.

"You leaving this room at all is already going to be hard enough to explain, I'd rather you not do it with your dress half-undone. Dying at Amora's hand is not the way I want to go."

I sniffed and stepped into the pooled material of the dress, placing a balancing hand on his shoulder and feeling the slightest disappointment when there was cloth under my fingertips rather than bare skin.

"I have no intention of claiming his throne, Tim," I said, touching my lips immediately after I'd spoken.

I hadn't intended to say anything of the sort -- not out loud anyways. It was a thought that had begun tumbling through my brain every so often after my brother died and I became heir apparent--

Wait.

I dropped to my knees so fast he thought I was in the middle of fainting and immediately grabbed my arms, looking concernedly at me when my head whipped up.

But my eyes were sharp and alert, the suspicion and lack of clarity once again contorting my features into a scowl, aimed at him as I gripped his shoulders with an iron clasp, digging my nails into his skin so hard that I wanted him to wince, but he didn't.

"Tristan."

"...what about him." I didn't miss that Tim swallowed hard before he asked, and my fingers itched to wrap around his throat again.

He looked away from my gaze and got absorbed into working the fabric up to my waist, taking one of my hands at a time, prying my grip away from his arms to gently slide the long sleeves over them.

"He'd never been thrown before, not even when he was first learning to ride. My brother was the best horseman anyone at court had seen in decades. Everyone said so."

"I know, I remember."

My eyes went wide again as I stopped his hands, the tight dress sleeves pulled up to my elbows as I grabbed his face with one hand under his jaw.

"How. How would you know that. You weren't here."

He tossed his head, yanking his jaw from my grasp and looking back at me with an equally steely glare, those two parallel lines furrowing his brow again.

"I was under the impression that we had established earlier that you not seeing me doesn't necessarily mean I'm not there..."

" _WHAT?"_

I rocketed to my feet, pulling the sleeves up my arms and over my shoulders, struggling with the tight material - it wasn't a particularly friendly medium to work with when one was mid-fit, having very little give or stretch.

"Linnea, _stop,"_ he commanded, snatching my hands and holding them in his own, sobering from his anger after a moment and looking back and forth between my eyes, "just let me explain."

My heartbeat was hammering in my ears and despite my best efforts, I felt the stinging sensation of tears pricking my eyes and looked away from his intense gaze.

"No. Leave me be, I'll do this myself," I pulled away from him again and desperately tried to get the material up my arms and over my shoulders so I could get the hell away from here.

From him.

"My darling, look at me."

"I am _not_ your darling, and you have no right to use my given name! I am your future queen and you will tell me this instant what I want to know! I'm not interested in your woven tales or excuses," I yelled, fury and frustration and fear clouding my features.

One look at him, and I knew he was reading me like a book as I scowled.

He stepped back, clasping his hands respectfully behind his back and inclining his head.

I tried to ignore the way his hair spilled like sun-colored silk down his shoulders.

"Apologies, your highness," he said softly, waiting for me to keep treading down this path I'd chosen, where we were no longer equals and I could demand what I liked of him.

"I...I...how were you...where--"

He waited for me to string together something coherent, but all I could think about was the image of my brother's laughing face.

By now I couldn't really figure out if it was a real memory or something I'd concocted as an over-corrective reaction to my grief, but I had this one particular image of him in my mind, sitting astride his favorite horse, laughing like he'd just heard the funniest joke in the world, the sunlight catching the blonde undertones in his hair. He'd been closer to our mother's coloring in that respect, not dark like me and the king.

_Tristan..._

My breath hitched and Tim paused for a moment before chancing a step forward now that he saw I was calmer.

I shook my head sadly, realizing that no matter how much I pulled rank on him, I would never understand without his help, and another tear escaped, though I wasn't really crying. It felt more like I was experiencing too much emotion for my frame to hold.

"How long have you been here," I asked, looking down at the floor, taking one deep, slow breath after another until I could look at him.

"Eight years."

"...Eight?!"

Tim nodded, having the courtesy to avert his gaze as I stared flabbergasted for a moment, trying to right myself in the next so I was at least decent if we were going to have this conversation.

"But--but you--where were you?!"

"Lurking in the shadows like a common fucking thief," he snarled, flicking his stare up to mine, willing me to listen, "biding my time. Searching for my way in...I didn't expect either of you to be so...well-accompanied. Even for royals."

A horrified moan escaped my lips as I took a step back.

"NO!" I yelled, shaking my head, "please not him, tell me you didn't--"

"I didn't get the chance," he hissed, closing the gap I'd just created again, catching my face with both hands and pressing his forehead to mine, "trust me, please, Linnea. For the love I bear for your father. For...for y--... Please, you have to listen to me."

"Tim," I gasped on a choked sob, "what happened to him!"

"Hush, just listen," he said gently, his anger melting again once more, the stormy countenance softening as I'd learned it did with me in private.

His arm wrapped around my head, bringing it down against his chest as I tried to control my ragged breathing and fought my tears until I was stifling my gasping sobs, my ribs expanding rapidly with the echo of each one.

"Breathe, princess," he reminded me softly, bringing my hand to his chest, letting me feel the slow inhales and exhales in a bizarre parallel of our first moments in this place that seemed like they'd happened in another lifetime. Perhaps his breathing was controlled, but his heartbeat was erratic.

A finger tucked under my chin and lifted it, and he searched my eyes, back and forth before bowing his face and gently kissing me.

He kept me there, breathing his own forced calm into my lungs, coaxing my muscles to relax, even as they stiffened with need at tasting him again.

"Just tell me," I whispered, running my hands over his sides, feeling the thin frame and ridges of his ribs over his coarse shirt.

"Believe it or not, child, accidents sometimes are just accidents. Even the best riders get thrown from time to time....it just happens. We can't control it," he shook his head sadly, keeping his eyes closed and his forehead pressed against mine as one hand cupped the back of my head near the base of my skull.

My father's own physician said that Tristan had died probably only one or two moments after he landed. The angle. The force. The whatever. The perfect storm and the perfect physics.

Macabre, but perfect.

He'd had a bond with horses that most people weren't even lucky enough to find with other humans, and more often than not I had found myself convinced that he'd rather be the stablemaster than the king someday.

We'd all been shocked to find that he'd been thrown, that emotion dwarfed of course by the news that immediately followed in the next sentence.

He'd ridden that path a hundred times, probably more. The one down by the river, where he would stop and listen to the babbling of the water in the season before it broke its banks.

Something startled his horse unexpectedly and even the deep trust between beast and rider didn't outweigh the primal, animal instinct to flee.

"He died, you know...when your brother wasn't there going to see him anymore," Tim said softly after several minutes of deep, gut-wrenching silence, my head held against his chest while he petted my hair with gentle encouraging strokes, letting me drown in my memories, but quieting me all the same.

"I remember...I didn't ever know horses could die of grief, but I suppose if mama could, then why not his best friend too."

Tim closed his eyes tightly, taking a steeling breath that made my head lift up and down.

I didn't know, then.

"Not grief," he shook his head, lifting my chin to look at him once more, "not for her."

I was surprised to see his own eyes swimming as he shook his head and leaned down to gently kiss me again, letting me taste the bitter regret on his lips before he pulled back after only a moment

"I really can't handle any more of this, Tim--" I tried to back away but he refused to let me go, continuing anyways like I'd shown avid interest.

"You need to know. I can't--"

He was so rarely lost for words, and in fact I couldn't think of another time when I'd experience him not know exactly what to say, and I took pause and looked at him, pressing both hands to my cheeks and sucking in a steeling breath.

"I don't know how she knew where to look, but Amora found me out in the village, coming in the middle of the night and telling me that the queen had summoned me," he started, and my lips closed against my questions, refusing to let me interrupt.

"I thought I'd be executed on the spot, though in truth I hadn't actually done anything, not yet anyways. I came to her chambers, trying to figure any way out, to escape back to Calla without her knowing, but she was...kind. Regretful, even. She apologized for having me come in the middle of the night. Like I was inconvenienced or something," he scoffed.

I swallowed my sob, staring back and forth between the lovely, grief-stricken eyes that swirled with the colors of the sea as he looked away from me, staring at the far wall, his eyes roaming over each stone.

Tim remembered vividly as he spoke, like he was watching the entire scene again from a spectator's point of view as he crossed behind me and began tying up the laces, pulling the bottom ones tight before working up towards the nape of my neck.

_"I know who you are."_

_Tim stood rigid, staring away into the fireplace that should have long died by this hour of the night._

_"You do the bidding of someone who was once warm and loving but now is scorned and hateful...tell me your name."_

_"Majesty, I--"_

_"Tell me. Your name."_

_"T--" he swallowed hard, "Tim, your majesty. I'm sorry I don't know what you're talking ab--"_

_She rose from her chair then, no longer dressed in finery or jewels from the day, and placed a gentle hand under his chin when she reached him, turning his face up and looking over his features with a searching eye._

_"Tim...can it be? By the gods, but you were still a baby the last time I saw you."_

_His eyes shot up to hers as he took a step back, nearly tripping over his own boots._

_"You cannot know me..."_

_"Can I not?" she smiled sadly, taking a step away and looking into the dying fire, "even when you look so much like your mother?"_

_His eyes flicked around the room as his breathing got faster, shallower, looking for a way out - an escape so he could flee and never have to look back into her eyes, so equally full of sorrow and forgiveness._

_"Tell me what you have done to my son."_

_"Nothing!" he shouted, terrified tears starting to fill his eyes and cloud his judgement as he stepped back further._

_"Speak truthfully to me, child!" she said, matching his volume and staring him down when she whirled around._

_He could have easily overpowered her and fled, but something stayed his hand._

_There were several moments of terrified silence on his part, a time where he wished he could simply disappear into thin air or melt into the stones of the wall._

_"I..." he began, then paused, trying to steel himself, trying to summon the bravery to accept his fate. To die in an attempt to sate the bottomless hatred of a scorned father._

_He had failed. The beast had inadvertently completed his task for him, but there would be no kindness or congratulations for him before the king._

_His master was hard and unforgiving._

_"I did nothing, madam. Gods forgive me, but I never got the chance," he looked away shamefully as his mouth whispered the words._

_Her russet colored eyes looked back and forth across his features, searching for his truth._

_"But you were sent to fulfill such a task nonetheless and would have with time. Why does he seek the life of my children, Tim..."_

_Tim found himself unable to deceive her, unable to weave tales and excuses for his presence as he finally looked at her once more._

_"His rage and his hurt run deep, your highness."_

_"So he seeks to make me feel the same? To lose my own children, as he feels he has lost me?"_

_Tim felt a flush rise to his cheeks and looked away again, chewing his lip but refusing to answer._

_"You have had many chances to take the life of my son...why wait? Why risk failure and the displeasure of my father?"_

_At the suggestion of softness on his part or an aversion to completing his grisly mission, Tim's eyes flared, meeting her with something he thought was defiance, but only proved to be uncertainty._

_"I...the time was never right! There were too many eyes on him always."_

_At this she chuckled sadly, settling back down in her chair, a thing with broad arms and a comfortable, cushioned back that she could rest her head against. She seemed exhausted, defeated in a way that made him frown despite himself._

_"Been that way since his birth," she smiled wistfully, looking into the fire, "my Tristan never had to work hard for affection. He was the joy of the whole kingdom from the moment he could open his eyes."_

_"Yes, my lady," Tim said, surprised to find sadness in his own voice as well, "he seemed...beloved."_

_"As were you," she turned to him, "as was I once..."_

_"My life is forfeit, I understand," he looked away from her penetrating stare and at a painting on the wall, startling after a second when he recognized it as a scene from his home...their home...and moving towards it._

_"I heard that she passed, your mother," the queen uttered quietly, "I regret that I was not able to go back for her burial."_

_"She's there," Tim responded, pointing to a spot in the distant reaches of the landscape, near a copse of red-leafed trees._

_"I know that, dear. She always knew she wanted to spend her forever there, ever since we were girls."_

_"It was her...her last wish," Tim swallowed against the feeling like his throat was closing._

_"As this is mine."_

_He turned back to her, eyes alight, aware of his own lack of understanding._

_It was an uncommon feeling for him - to not hold all the cards._

_"When this is done, you will be free to leave here, Tim..."_

_"How--"_

_"Go back to Calla. Tell the king, my father...tell him that I forfeit my own life for that of my last child. I offer myself in place of Linnea. She's but a girl. Not yet even groomed to rule. He could have no quarrel with someone of her age and rank. Not now."_

_"No, wait!" he didn't know what she was planning on doing, but it had a disturbing finality and he half-expected her to brandish a knife at him before sinking it into her own breast._

_"Amora," she beckoned, holding out an elegant hand, bare of any jewels or signet rings, no daggers or malicious instruments held in its grasp._

_The tiring woman cast a wary, hateful glance at Tim as she crossed to her mistress, kneeling before her and kissing the outstretched appendage before pressing it to her cheek, then tucking something small into the elegant fingers._

_"My lady, there must be another way..." she whispered tearfully._

_"No, my friend," the queen shook her head, but showed no fear, "a mother must do what is best for her children. He will listen to this, if nothing else."_

_"Mistress, don't! Please! " Tim yelled, but she lifted the small glass vial to her lips, swallowing its clear contents without the slightest hesitation._

_She turned to him with a straight staring expression that he would see years later reflected on my own face, gazing back at his in the mirror._

_"You know well that this is no Hellebore. You know that we don't feel its effects."_

_He felt the urge to rush towards her, to shove his fingers down her throat until she vomited up the poison._

_"Tell him," she said quietly, getting up and moving towards her bed, lifting back the covers and settling peacefully beneath them, her face serene and sure, laying where she wished to die._

_"Amora. Tell my daughter that I am made proud by the woman she is becoming, and tell my king," she paused, a single tear sliding from the corner of her eye, "tell him that if I ever knew of love...it was because of him."_

_Tim couldn't speak, watching her drift off, like she was simply passing into the sleeping world of her dreams as he crossed the room to her._

_After three or four minutes, her chest ceased to rise and fall, and she was gone without a struggle as he held her hand, seated at the edge of the large state bed, his face aghast, tears streaking unheeded down his unshaven face._

_In that moment he was left with Amora, who looked at him bitterly, but with all the quiet conviction a woman of her station kept._

_He rose and turned to her without a word, accepting that she very well might just dispatch him then and there and save his king the trouble._

_But all she did was hold out a small, flat box to him._

_"Her majesty wished you to have this. It was a gift from your mother when...when my mistress was her closest friend as a girl. Your king will know that you speak the truth if you have this."_

_He silently lifted the lid, the firelit glimmer of the emeralds inside piercing him like the sacred nails._

_"Several paths stretch before you," she cautioned sadly, the grief already etching her face with tired lines that would never fully go away again, "go to your master now, I'll not stop you."_

_Tim swallowed hard, slipping the small box into his pocket and turning back when she caught him by the arms._

_"Do not forget what she said, lad. A life for a life. Go...RUN!"_

_He fled then, tearing silently through the halls, past the very door where I slept, one he'd visit years later, fleeing the castle and spurring his horse as fast as it would carry him towards the border._

I stared at him with shocked tears rolling down my cheeks as my fingers clutched the stone around my neck, understanding its origin now.

Amora and my father had always told me she'd died of her grief. That one night while my father was away, she'd laid down and simply hadn't gotten back up again in the morning.

But it had been for nothing.

There had obviously been no mercy from her father. He hadn't cared if she'd given her life for mine.

"No, he did care," Tim said softly, making me realize I'd spoken out loud as he turned me gently to face him and cupped my cheek, lifting my face up to meet his searching gaze, unsure now that he'd bared his most secret truth, "just not enough to change him."

"And you went back to him? Right away?"

A sad nod was all I got in response before be turned me back to the mirror, righting my dress all the way and smoothing both hands slowly down over the material as he finished tying the laces.

"Tim," I reached back and stilled his hands with mine as he reluctantly met my gaze in the mirror once more, letting them settle at my waist.

"If what you're saying is the truth, then I'm not angry at you...it wasn't your fault."

What? Was that really true?

I searched my heart as he stared at me and found that it _was_ true. I did believe him, even as it tore my heart to shreds to think that my own wonderful, beautiful mother had taken such a thing upon herself, trusting that her father would understand, only to have him thwart her wishes.

Nothing satisfied wretched hate of this caliber.

"Calm your breathing, princess," he cautioned, as my face started to turn red and my brow ached from the force of my scowl.

"Why are you here, if she sent you home unmolested...why did you come back?"

"Because he sent me back, my darling. Because his surprise and his grief made his rage more potent and seemed to only harden his resolve...I think..." he sighed, shaking his head, "I think your mother may have miscalculated. He imagined that someday she might...perhaps she would see the error of her ways and come back to him. It wasn't ever her life he wanted, it was just...her," he finished flatly.

Tim gave me the time to silently cry as he watched me in the mirror, clutching my necklace like it still held her warmth.

I was tempted to just crumble to the floor and lay there until the world fixed itself around me or I died where I lay.

It had been a little over five years, and I'd made my peace with her passing long before, but his revelations felt like they re-opened old wounds and tore new ones into my flesh alongside them.

"Come on," Tim sighed, gathering me by the shoulders to move me towards the door, but I only collapsed against him, shaking my head back and forth, grinding my forehead into his collarbone.

"What does that mean, 'we don't feel its effects', I thought you said Hellebore stops your heart," I mumbled into his shirt, taking one deep breath after another of his scent.

"I think," he sighed, taking me by the shoulder, "perhaps this is a conversation to have with Amora--"

"Amora isn't Callan. You are."

His mouth formed a thin, hard line as he looked back and forth between my eyes.

A loud pounding on the door interrupted his next thought, and he pressed a finger to his lips, ushering me -- well, more like impatiently shoving me -- into the bedroom and closing the door, commanding that I be silent.

I rolled my eyes, turning on my heel and rolling my aching head back and forth, trying to relieve the incessant pounding.

Something metallic caught my gaze and I crossed over to retrieve the knife from the floor, turning it over and over in my hands as I thought about what I'd learned.

But how could anyone not be susceptible to poison?

His story made a part of me sad, but mostly it only hardened my resolve.

I hadn't been lying to Tim earlier -- Calla was never a part of my planned inheritance.

Not till right now.

I made a silent vow to myself to see the old king buried as the last native-born lord of Calla one way or another before integrating his lands and his titles into my own.

It was my birthright, after all.

I tucked the dagger into my sleeve.

Perhaps he wouldn't miss just this one. He had a dozen others by the looks of it.

The sound of voices startled me from my brooding rage as I recognized Lucan's mingling with Tim's now outside the door.

"What happened," Tim asked sharply, walking away from both of us and carding his hands through his hair once I yanked open the door unceremoniously.

"I don't know, he just collapsed!" Lucan was out of breath like he'd been running.

A string of curses flew from Tim's lips that would have made any proper lady blush as he moved past me and back into his bedroom, returning with his uniform jacket on and buttoned.

Lucan looked at me with a grimace as Tim snarled with frustration, trying to section his hair to braid it, but it wouldn't cooperate and he repeatedly tangled his fingers in his haste. I got the impression that he never left this room with it down. I'd certainly never seen it any other way before tonight. 

"Stop, let me help you," I moved towards him and stilled his frantic movements, taking both of his hands in mine to shift them out of his thick tresses.

"Turn."

"This is fine," he said, still facing me, both of us swallowing hard as I gently pulled through the snarls and wove each thick section over and under the others until it hung long and thick down around one shoulder.

"You should have stayed with him," Tim snapped over my shoulder towards Lucan, the lines of his body fraught with tension and a little bit of something else that he couldn't help, "you never leave the king unless I am there to relieve you. You know better."

"The man is dying and asked for you!" Lucan snapped right back, "now GO!"

"WHAT?" I'd been so consumed in my own thoughts that I really hadn't stopped to think about what either of them had said up to that point.

Tim flew past me and I moved to go after him into the mirror room with Lucan hot on our heels.

"Tell me what's happening to my father!" I begged, grabbing at his shoulders but he shook me off in his haste as he stepped into his boots and bent to tie them up quickly.

"Tim, wait! Let me come with you!" I ran after him again when he left without a word, but he whirled around and stopped me, gripping me by both shoulders and forcing me to walk backwards to the room where we'd just been, not caring that the other was watching us and that what he was doing was highly improper.

"You do not need to see this. You don't want to remember him like this, please believe me...stay here, Linnea," he said lowly, the hint of a passionate plea in his tone enough to make me stop fighting him.

"I will send for Amora, do _not_ let the princess leave this room until she comes to fetch her or you will have me to answer to," he addressed his man over my shoulder.

Tim looked back to me with that hard, piercing stare, willing me to cling to the trust I'd decided to place with him.

"I will get you out, if it comes to that. You stay in this room, Linnea."

Without another word Tim disappeared, the wooden door slamming behind him.

My chest heaved for breath as my vision started to blur, but that low male voice that was present now only in my head told me to breathe slowly and I could feel the gentle expansion and relaxation of his chest under my fingertips, the hammering, strong heartbeat that betrayed him.

I closed my eyes, feeling a single tear trickle down my cheek. It was the only physical manifestation of my overwhelmed psyche that I had time for, but as I took one slow breath then another, it seemed to work wonders on my frazzled nerves.

I felt like I'd cried an ocean tonight already, but I had to admit that it _did_ help.

Maybe I needed to cry more often.

I lifted my chin and turned back to Lucan, ready to face his countenance that was surely going to be as tearstained and distraught as I wanted mine to be, and demand answers, but his face held a peculiar expression as his eyes flitted over the painting that had drawn me to this room in the first place hours ago.

His posture was stiff and his lips twitched briefly before he bared his teeth and grabbed a knife from the array laid out on the table, slashing through the center of the portrait with a vicious, animal snarl that made my stomach drop.

"Lucan!" I yelled, "what the hell has gotten into you! You had no right to--"

But as he turned, the pieces came crashing together without my permission.

He faced me, breathing hard, and I watched like I was in a dream as he gripped the knife by the hilt until his knuckles were white, the lights accentuating the blonder, rosier color of the roots of his hair.

I'd noticed them earlier but thought them to be undertones, tricks of the light and complements to his simple choice of costume.

I almost didn't notice Tim returning over the roaring in my ears, the only audible voice in the room grumbling about never forgetting anything in his life before.

He moved around to my side, turning in a circle and searching for something with a muttered curse before meeting my wild eyes briefly, doing a double take when he saw the expression there and pausing.

"What is it--"

"Hellebore," I looked back and forth from him to Lucan.

I'd never been given reason to use my safe word around him. But he knew that any utterance of the word from my lips meant trouble.

Something wrong.

Something off.

Tim's entire countenance shifted, like he was bristling, and his gaze traveled over to Lucan, briefly eyeing the ruined painting behind him, his mind swiftly stitching the information together and making Lucan shift on his feet and produce the knife from behind his back once the razor-sharp stare flitted back to him.

"Go," Lucan urged, "your king is dying and begged to speak with you. You may already be too--"

"If he is dying so quickly then there is probably nothing I can do for him now," Tim responded coolly, his hand automatically reaching for the knife at his belt that wasn't there.

In his sudden departure he'd forgotten to grab it.

That's why he was even here at all now - he'd come back to retrieve it, trying to empty his head that swirled with a confusing miasma of culprit theories and images of my skin becoming his canvas.

To his credit, Tim didn't doubt my sureness for a moment. He trusted me not to make such an accusation without ample cause.

Lucan recognized his advantage and quickly moved a step away from the table laden with weapons, forcing Tim to turn his back towards it and the ruined painting to keep him in his sight.

"Linnea, leave the room," Tim said lowly, keeping both hands open and ready like he was expecting an attack at any moment, shifting one foot at a time to get Lucan away from the doorway, "I want you to run as fast as you can to the king's chamber and lock yourself inside. Alert all of his guards to let no one in but myself."

I edged towards the door and his voice piped up again.

"And tell him what you have seen."

"I--Tim I don't think he's--"

"I'm sure he's fine," Tim said with a straight face, "if the king dies the whole castle locks down, and Lucan wouldn't be stupid enough to come here with so little time to spare and dispatch you too. Besides..." Tim's eyes were molten as he looked straight at Lucan and spoke to me still, "the old man wants him to be eaten alive with guilt over your death. He wants him to regret the day he ever met the queen."

"She's not leaving," Lucan smiled darkly, moving back to block the only point of exit and turning towards me threateningly.

The pricking of my skin and the sharp tang of crimson pain as I jumped with fright reminded me of what I carried concealed within my sleeve.

The only thing I could think to do was stall for time, but I found that I was experiencing something like relief, like the constant looking over my shoulder, the worry about new deaths, was over.

Here in front of us was the answer to it all.

Well, to some of it.

"Why wait?" I frowned and shook my head, drawing Lucan's attention for a moment as he realized I was addressing him, "why not just slit my throat one of the hundred times you've been escorting me somewhere? You've had..." I tried to come up with a number but couldn't even fathom it, "almost endless opportunity."

"Perhaps my approach is somewhat subtler, Princess," he said coldly, those eyes that I'd thought held such warmth for me before now steely and dark, "or perhaps you simply can't you see the artistry of it..."

He huffed a sharp bark of a laugh, the sound tinged with a slight madness and a frustration that we weren't piecing it together on our own as he waited impatiently.

"By the very nature of trying to protect her, _his majesty_ was sealing her fate. Dooming her to share time with you every day," he took a step closer to Tim, who still was empty-handed, "to move over the same sand. To drink from the same pitcher..."

Tim went pale and seemed to freeze solid standing where he was between us, rising from the slightly crouched position he'd dropped into as he was bracing himself for what was coming. His mind worked furiously, but the hints given were too vague and he couldn't understand.

"He wishes it to be slow...for you to suffer, so that your father can watch his daughter slip away from his grasp, as my lord did..."

"But...but..." I was undeniably even more confused now that Tim was somehow woven into this mad plot right alongside me.

Were we always supposed to end up here? Was he waiting until inevitably we were alone together? Clearly he didn't know of the months of late-night visits. But even so, why wait for me to train so long? Why increase the chances of him losing in a two-on-one fight?

I was sure the old king wanted Tim dead too, but I was still missing too many pieces.

My confusion clouded everything, and it didn't help matters when Tim's head slowly turned towards the ruined painting and he started laughing after a moment, the fury giving way to a terrifying, mad sound as he advanced on the other, no weapon in his hands.

They started circling each other in a fatal dance, one step at a time, Tim's eyes flickering back and forth between Lucan's face and his knife.

He'd taught me on the first day of my training that you can read as much information from your opponent's face as you can from the way they hold their weapon.

"You put it in the water pitcher. You knew she'd drink it at least once a day and that I would never show any reaction to it, so they'd never suspect where it had come from because I drank it at the same time and was fine...gods, its clever, I'll credit you that."

"It wasn't clever, Tim, it was _brilliant_ ," Lucan snarled, grinning broadly, "perfect even."

What did the water have to do with it?

"Perfect except you got it wrong," Tim shook his head with his mouth curling into a smirk, halfway forgetting I was there, "she's got more Callan in her than the others - the serving girl and Otho's wife, you didn't give her enough."

Enough what?

Enough water?

I looked at the picture, trying to arrive at whatever conclusion he just had, and it crashed down on my head like a brick.

Poison.

Of course.

_You know well that this is no Hellebore. You know that we do not feel its effects._

It was a little absurd that my reaction was to laugh too, but I was so relieved now to know. I felt my shoulders almost sag with relief as my mind stopped working triple time to fit all the bits and pieces of information together.

Tim jumped a little, like my sudden outburst startled him.

Lucan was shocked too as I swept up behind Tim, making my choice, having had enough time to think it through now, and locked my arm around his neck, crushing my forearm against his throat.

"Tsk tsk, where is that focus today," I tutted softly into his ear as I grabbed one of this hands and wrenched his arm behind his back while his other gripped my opposite arm, trying to forece me to release him from the chokehold.

He could breathe, but he had to work for it, and understood after the initial shock passed what I was doing as I slackened my hold fractionally and let the dagger slip in inch from my sleeve into the hand pinned in the middle of his back so he could feel what it was. 

His fingers gingerly explored the hilt for a moment. 

"What are you doing," he growled at me, tugging at my arm but giving it a hard enough squeeze just the once that I knew he remembered telling me that very same thing earlier in the morning.

He didn't fully understand where I was going with it, but he knew this part at least.

"Perhaps I should kill you both as Callans are not to be trusted in this kingdom it seems," I subtly tucked the dagger away back into my sleeve as he held his arm in place so it appeared that I'd kept him pinned the whole time, though Lucan was so shocked at my unexpected aggression towards Tim that he missed any indications of what was happening.

I let him take a breath, feeling the expansion of his back as he silently filled his lungs, and then I tightened, pulling my arm harder against his throat in a real struggle, waiting for him to make his move so it was all authentic.

He snarled and growled, fighting me and twisting until he wrenched his pinned hand out of my grasp the way he'd shown me that morning and used both hands to grip my arm around his neck and flip me over his head as he dropped low.

I knew what was coming and braced for it, laying flat on the ground and out of the way, but he still moved so fast that I almost missed the whole thing, getting pulled off my feet and over his head only to land hard on my back and gasp for breath as Tim's hand reached into his boot in a flash and flung something end over end towards the other.

Lucan shouted in pain and gripped his leg with one hand, the blood pouring out from around the shortblade protruding from his thigh. His anger exploded and his boot collided with Tim's face as he hovered over me, trying to pull me out of the way, and he went flying, landing in a heap several feet away, groaning in pain and struggling to get to his hands and knees.

But as much as Tim's strike had seemed to happen like a burst of lightening, everything from the moment beyond Lucan's responding roar of rage and pain seemed to stall, to drop into slow motion.

My heartbeat was a dull, lagging thud in my ears, and the stranger screaming from far away turned out to be me as Tim's unconscious body slumped to the ground and I saw the unquenchable burning anger flaming deep in Lucan's eyes, like his king was watching me through them, finally getting to witness my life being extinguished.

In the next second the blade that had caressed my most sensitive skin just an hour earlier was protruding from the center of Lucan's chest, buried to the hilt, my hand wrapped around the handle as the cord became soaked with blood, the sticky warmth flowing down over my fingers and ruining my dress.

The shocked look on his face reflected my own and froze there as his weapon clattered to the floor, falling from limp fingers before he blinked and looked down at the spike of metal.

He didn't say anything before he collapsed sideways, leaning on his palm, trying to stay upright, but ultimately falling onto his side and dying on the stone floor in a pool of his own blood.

The black spots began to color my vision as I trembled, gasping for air, straining the laces of my gown and struggling against the restrictive fabric as I crawled towards Tim, his body slumped on the floor and facing away from me.

"T--T--" I swallowed but my teeth were chattering too much to get his name out.

I shook him once, pushing my weight against him and rocking his body back and forth on the hard stone floor until he was on his back and his eyes fluttered.

Mine went funny as his opened wide, and he was just fast enough to throw an arm out and break my fall as I passed out and pitched face-first towards the floor, the gash in my arm where I'd cut myself with the dagger drawing it out of my sleeve flowing with blood.

The last thing I remembered was the sound of fabric tearing as he tore my sleeve open up to my elbow and tried to staunch the flow with strips of linen from my dress, pleading with me to listen to his voice and stay there with him.

**Author's Note:**

> lets pretend Tim didn't cut off all that beautiful hair, yeah?
> 
> Make no mistake, we're a in a fucking fight about that.


End file.
